Film of 2013: Wolf Children

If director Mamoru Hosoda has one signature skill it is the seamless marriage of fanciful anime wackiness with heart-wrenching sorrow. The plots of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars are both driven by the kind of unexplained madness that so infuses eastern storytelling. Yet that madness always brings tragic consequences that affect audiences on a universal level. Touching on themes of parenthood, coming-of-age and loss Wolf Children may be Hosoda’s most universal film to date. A showpiece as to why critics compare him to the likes of Hayao Miyazaki.

Another unique quality to Wolf Children is that it has the thinnest plot of Hosoda’s work. Compulsively happy college student Hana falls in love with a Wolf Man and before Twilight-haters have a chance to tear up their tickets the two are living together with two baby Okami When the Wolf Man dies in a random accident Hana moves the kids, Yuki and Ame, to the country hoping that in seclusion the children can use their powers unnoticed. From there the film follows the children growing towards adolescence and facing the choice of what they want to be, wolves or humans.

That decision looms over the film touching on its strongest theme, with the wolf vs. human conflict serving as an allegory for discovering your identity. An allegory made tragic by the fact that we see this from the mother’s perspective, meaning that whatever the resolution it has to culminate in a moment that, for most parents, comes too soon. The day your child leaves home. Wolf Children’s greatest achievement is in communicating exactly how this feels. The animation and music wells up with elation before settling down to a melancholy note of finality.

There are bumps in the road on this journey though. While the fun of watching Hana struggle with both motherhood and animal care or Yuki and Ame embrace their inner animal keep it a fun ride it feels at times like a meandering one. One second act digression in particular sees the rural community coming together to help Hana grow her food in a way that feels heart-warming but ultimately pointless.

Hana herself has little characterisation beyond being determined to please everyone, effortlessly winning empathy as the self-sacrificing mother. Meaning Yuki and Ame are the real personality of the film, Yuki easily being the most extroverted but both are full of energy and resolve. Their very different identities a necessary move to send them both on very different paths with unexpected results. 

Wolf Children is the best kind of anime, the kind that transcends its cultural heritage into something the whole world can enjoy. Like parenthood it may demand a little patience at times but is absolutely worth it in the end.

Miyazaki Spirited Away to Retirement

I was going to use today, one day before the DVD release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, to discuss my opinion of the film which has evolved somewhat since its release. However this story takes prescedent as it will easily have the most significant impact on film as a whole. The story in question? Today, September 1st 2013, it was announced that Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of the seminal Studio Ghibli and the director of some the most popular and endearing children's films of the last decade is to retire.

The news which came from Studio Ghibli head Koji Hoshino was met with stunned silence when revealed at the Venice Film Festival. The festival is to screen Miyazaki's eleventh, and now I guess final, film The Wind Rises. It's fitting then that the film neatly encapsulates the two subjects which most fuel  Miyazaki's passion and which have been woven throughout his work, for better or for worse. His love for flight and aviation and his hatred of war. 

The Wind Rises is about Jiro a young Japanese boy who dreams of flight and goes on to be a flight designer during World War Two. Refreshingly for a film about realising ones dreams the central conflict comes from losing out to simple competition not from external influences that hinder the path to being the best. And like Oppenheimer, like even Orville Wright himself, Jiro lives a life of regret at the suffering his works brought.

As mentioned the theme of war has permeated many of Miyazaki's films at Studio Ghibli. Ashitaka's quest against the weapons manufacturer Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke to Porco Rosso's past as a fighter pilot. Sometimes I feel this is a detriment to his work, like in Howl's Moving Castle where the war serves as little more than set dressing. Presented without cause or distinction of the two sides crippling our ability to empathise with Howl for doing what he can to protect the innocent. Though this is far from my sole problem with the film.

Whether Miyzaki's legacy will be to encourage universal pacifism or the preservation of the natural world remains to be seen. What is indisputable is that his contribution to Japanese Animation has not only produced some of its most compelling works but burst it onto mainstream western culture. Walt Disney releasing Princess Mononoke paved the way for future Ghibli films now released and arthouse cinema's and children's screenings across the west. That last point I think is one component of Ghibli's success, for all the depth added by theme and mythology they still work remarkably well as children's film.

My Neighbour Totoro is, for me, the best example of this. Led by two, incredibly sympathetic leads and set across the beauty of Akita Prefecture serving as the backdrop. The story is almost nonexistent as two young sisters try to come to terms with their mother suffering a severe sickness, finding respite in Totoro, the playful spirit of the forest. It's the profound sadness that makes the joy in their adventures with Totoro so palpable and the simple but distinct visual design of the spirit is what has made him a cult icon.

If I'm being honest though my favourite is and now always will be Laputa: Castle in the Sky. What can I say, I'm a sucker for adventure and similar to Miyazaki I've always has a fascination with airships. Airplanes may be the statistically safest way to fly but that doesn't stop your heart racing on takeoff. And that's what Laputa does, it whisks you away at high velocity then settles to let you get comfortable before taking its turns. It's a unique, funny and thrilling adventure that I can watch time and time again.

Studio Ghibli will not end with Miyazaki. That has never been a prospect. Recent addition to the team Hiromasa Yonebayashi debuted with The Secret World of Arietty which neatly embodies everything great about a Studio Ghibli film. Isao Takahata, who directed the heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies continues to work with the studio. With his 5th Ghibli film The Story of Princess Kaguya currently in production. And of course there is Miyazaki's son Goro. Yes, his freshman outing Tales of Earthsea was met with a mixed critical reception, harshly earning his the Japanese equivalent of the Razzies. But From Up On Poppy Hill has fared much better with its plot closer to Ghibli films outside the fantasy genre like Only Yesterday.

Yes Ghibli will continue without Hayao Miyazaki's contribution but there is a sense that film will be poorer for it. He opened the west up to not only Japanese animation, which already had a dedicated albeit fringe following, but to worlds of splendor and hope. For the last year I have considered becoming an English language teacher in Japan. It is a desire brought about by the beauty the Ghibli films have shown me. Because of Miyazaki I want to walk up the Tama hills and along the safflower fields of Yamagata. And if I do I'll keep an eye out for Totoro.