Pom Poko

Year of Release:  1994
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata
Starring:  Konkontei Schinchou, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida
Running Time:  114 minutes
Genre: Animation, fantasy, comedy  

In the Tama Hills, in the outskirts of Tokyo, a group of tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) find their homes threatened by human developers.  The lazy and capricious tanuki take a break from their favorite pastimes of partying, eating and fighting to use their considerable shape-shifting powers to fight against the developers.

This is one of the lesser known entries in the back catalogue of Japan's great Studio Ghibli .  The storyline suggests a fairly conventional plot of cute animals fighting to save their homes from greedy developers, but the film is far weirder and darker than that suggests.  Writer and director Iasao Takahata (who also made Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Only Yesterday (1991), My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) and the Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)) specialised in films inspired by and based around Japanese history and folklore and this is the case here.  The film uses a variety of animation styles, from realistic depictions of landscapes and animals, to more traditional cute animation, to images based on traditional Japanese art, one sequence even animates the action as video game graphics.  The film uses a documentary-style voice over and moves from goofy, slapstick comedy (true to the folklore the tanuki have massive testicles which they use in their shape-shifting), to surprisingly dark and violent.  It's funny and entertaining, but it's very inconsistent in tone and certainly too long.  Some of the sequences used when the tanuki terrify people with grotesque monsters and demons are genuinely nightmarish, and they are far from averse to straight up killing people, so it might be worth checking it out yourself before showing it to young children.  The films' tonal inconsistencies and the donwbeat ending really threw me when I first saw it, but I enjoyed it much more on a second viewing        

Tanuki in Pom Poko

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Year of Release:  2013
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata and Riko Sagacuchi, based on the folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
Starring:  Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, Takeo Chii, Nobuko Miyamoto
Running Time:    137 minutes
Genre:    Drama, fantasy, animation

This is one of the most beautiful films ever made.  made by Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli, and based on the traditional Japanese folk tale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, with first appeared in print in the tenth century, and was old even then, the story revolves around an elderly bamboo cutter,   Miyatsuko (Chii), who discovers a miniature girl inside a glowing bamboo shoot.  Miyatsuko and his wife decide to raise her as their own.  The girl grows and learns astonishingly rapidly.  Miyatsuko discovers gold, jewels and fine clothes in the bamboo grove, again hidden in glowing shoots.  With his new-found wealth, Miyatsuko moves his family to the capital and buys their way into the gentry, having his daughter formally named Princess Kaguya (Asakura).  Her astonishing beauty captivates those around her, and Kaguya soon finds herself trapped.

The animation is stunning in beautiful charcoal, crayon, pastel colours, it has the look and feel of traditional Japanese art.  The story moves slowly, and has a surprisingly dark conclusion, but it's full of beautiful moments, it looks and feels like a dream, taking the viewer into a remote world.  The film constructs the social world of 10th century Japan, but Kaguya is a very modern character, who just wants agency over her own life, and finds herself being thrust into situations by her well-intentioned father, wants to return to the time when she felt truly happy.  As with many Studio Ghibli films, this has a real feel for the natural world, and a forgotten rural life.

Possibly too slow and dark for some viewers, if you surrender to this beautiful dream of a film you will be rewarded with one of the most uplifting and devastating experiences you are ever likely to see on screen.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Only Yesterday

Year of Release:  1991
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata, based on the manga Omoide Poro Poro by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone 
Starring: Miki Imai. Toshiro Yanagiba, Yoko Honna
Running Time:  118 minutes
Genre:  drama, animation, slice of life

This lyrical, animated drama is one of the lesser known classics in the catalogue of Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli.  It tells the story of Taeko, a 27 year old, unmarried, office worker living in Tokyo.  Taking a ten day holiday from work she travels to a remote farm owned by the elder brother of her brother-in-law, to help with the safflower harvest.  Along the way she drifts back to memories of her ten year old self in 1966.  Increasingly nostalgic and wistful, Taeko's memories and dreams make her realise what she really wants from life.

This is a genuinely powerful film, which, in it's quiet way, is a masterpiece.  It deals with themes of memory, city versus country, and the relationship between adults and the children they once were.  The "present day" (or 1980s) sequences have a particularly realistic look to them, unusually for Japanese animation, the dialogue for these scenes was recorded before the animation was produced.  For the 1966 sequences, a more typical anime style is used for the characters, with the backgrounds done in  a sketchy watercolour style, which shows how memory can be.  If you look back to your own childhood memories, some elements may stand out vividly, but a lot of them are fainter and more unreal.  It also takes us into Taeko's dreams and fantasies, which are vividly depicted.

The film takes it's time and beautifully evokes the rhythms of rural life, as well as the triumphs and heartbreaks of childhood.  The film suggests that we are at our purest, most honest selves as children, and that as adults, we have to reconnect with the children that we once were.  Sometimes sweet, sometimes heartbreaking, often funny, this is a gentle dream of a film.

      The past meets the present in Only Yesterday