Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki (2002, in theatre)
Wow. I am stunned at how good this movie is. I was just a little bit disappointed with Princess Mononoke, but Spirited Away just blows it away. It's a powerful, dark fairy-tale, with astounding depth, texture, and attention to detail. The animation work is jaw-dropping, the character designs cover the gamut from Totoro-cute to Cthulhu-scary — sometimes in a single critter. The fantasy icons are apparently drawn from Japanese myth, but resonate reasonably well with Western fairy tales, though the correspondence is distorted in a way which only enhances the dreamlike feel. The ending is stronger than some of Miyazaki's previous outings: he gives you more conflict to work with than his "kiddy" films My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service, but resolves them without the random violence of Mononoke or Nausicaa. In my opinion, this may be Miyazaki's best work yet (OK, OK, I actually haven't seen all of his movies, so I could be full of it). We saw it in Japanese, subtitled in English, at the AMC Kabuki in Japantown; the subtitling work is good. Miyazaki is happy for you to watch it dubbed, but that always seems a little risky to me. One way or another, you should go see this movie.
| Comments (334) | TrackBack (263) | link me | October 2002

My Neighbor Totoro - Hayao Miyazaki (Tonari no Totoro) (1988, DVD)
Finally we watch one that's been on the whiteboard! Our friend anne has been wanting to get meriko and I to watch this, and we finally got around to it. A total of six people were at anne's, and we had a fabulous homemade sushi dinner to get us in a Japanese mood. We watched a Japanese-language DVD (with helpful Japanese subtitles!). We did have English-language script translations handy to refer to, which was invaluable as we speak about a dozen words of Japanese among the six of us. The film itself is a delightful animated children's fantasy. While targeted at children, most adults will enjoy it, particularly parents of four- to eleven-year-olds. There's not enough plot to really be worth describing, but it's more than made up for in imagery and mood (and I'm frequently put off by style over substance!). According to anne, changes made in the English-language version detract from the overall quality of the movie, so it might be worth hunting down a Japanese-language version. Very small English-speaking kids will probably "get it" just fine in Japanese, but others might be frustrated. Wouldn't your daily commute be much more enjoyable on a cat-bus?
| Comments (19) | TrackBack (156) | link me | January 2001