Howl's Moving Castle

I think Miyazaki is at his best when he is working on a subject that is really important to him personally (e.g. his own childhood or his views on humans' relationship to the environment, generally vis-a-vis technology).

Therefore, I think My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke are among his strongest films. Conversely, I think Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle are among his weakest films, since they are homages or adaptations of things that aren't as resonant with Miyazaki himself. Apparently, Miyazaki changed elements of the story of Howl's Moving Castle to resonate more strongly with his beliefs (according to Wikipedia, he added the war element because of the war in Iraq), but modification pales in comparison to construction.

That said, Howl's Moving Castle impressed me in some ways and disappointed me in others.

I was satisfied with the visual style and animation. I think the CGI was incorporated pretty seamlessly into the film, and there were some fantastic sequences of magic. The moment when Suliman jabbed the ground with her stick, launching Howl and Sophie into a constantly morphing realm, was awe-inspiring. I liked the way Miyazaki explored greater and greater depths of the characters' powers, visually.

I was dissatisfied with the incredibly neat, happy ending. I was fine with Howl and Sophie getting together at the end, but I thought Turnip Head being restored to a prince by Sophie's kiss was too much. I wonder why Miyazaki chose to end the film this way, against his usual style. I think it would have been interesting to leave threads of the film unanswered and unsolved, but pretty much everyone is fine at the end. It's possible that he thought this would be his last film and so went for a happy ending to sum up his directorial career.

Of all of Miyazaki's films, I think this one would be interesting to see in English; it might have more resonance with the English novel (which I haven't read).

Spirited Away

Things I noticed about Spirited Away...

1. The link to consumerism and consumption, rather explicitly shown in the numerous scenes of eating in the film. Here are the ones I remember:

- Chihiro's parents eating their feast
- No Face eating the magic dumpling
- Chihiro eating the seed/berry Haku gives her
- Chihiro and Lin eating pork buns
- Chihiro eating the dumpling Haku gives her
- No Face eating the various bathhouse folks

In many of these scenes, eating is associated with strong feelings of revulsion or some other emotional response. Chihiro breaks down in tears when she eats the dumplings given her by Haku, and I'm sure the bathhouse folks don't appreciate being eaten. Likewise, there's the antithesis of eating - vomiting - emphasized in No Face's "tour de force", as Napier calls it, throwing up everything he's eaten.

Also throughout the film, food tends to have a mystical connotation of some sort - it's rarely just for nourishment. Even Chihiro and Lin's eating of the pork buns is problematic because Chihiro takes a bite of the magic dumpling and is disgusted by it - it looks like she bites into the pork bun to wash it down. Chihiro's rejection of food seems synonymous with her rejection of riches and consumerism more generally - she only takes what she needs, even at the beginning of the film.

2. The giant ducks in Spirited Away are like crosses between Totoro and chocobo from Final Fantasy, while Haku looks like a cross between the wolves from Princess Mononoke and a dragon.

Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is an epic film. It's obvious that Miyazaki spent a long time thinking about the small details that compose it. According to Wikipedia, he spent 16 years developing the story and characters.

I didn't know that Princess Mononoke used CGI before this class. I thought that it was all animated traditionally. Despite that, the uses of CGI are really clever and well-executed.

The depth, animation, and personality of each of the characters is very engrossing. I like the interactions between the non-human characters.

The reason for the death of the deer god came up in class. Different theories were advanced. For the record, I think the deer god died because it had not completely re-absorbed its head before the sun came up. My evidence for this is that a flash of light went through the night walker as it absorbed its head, but the light did not fill its entire body.