Laputa : Evoking and engaging with our sense of wonder

This is an accreting review of Laputa : Castle in the Sky (1986)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

11 May

This is an accreting review of Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986)

At @CamPicturehouse, Hiyao Miyazaki evoked and with engaged our sense of wonder - Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986)

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 11, 2016

Film references (identifying other films directed by Hayao Miyazaki¹) :

* Akira (1988)

* Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) [Hayao M.]

* Jupiter Ascending (2015)

* Princess Mononoke (1997) [Hayao M.]

* Spirited Away (Sento Chihirono kamikakushi) (2001) [Hayao M.]

* The Iron Giant (1999) [based on The Iron Man : A Children's Story in Five Nights, a novel by Ted Hughes, first published in 1968]

-> At @CamPicturehouse, Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986) would remind of The Iron Giant, but Hughes came first...

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 12, 2016

* The Matrix (1999)

* The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu) (2013) [Hayao M.]


[...]

-> In 1726, when Swift first published what we call Gulliver's Travels, they still gave them snappy titles that smacked of verisimilitude.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 12, 2016

[...]


End-notes

¹ The following list is of motifs that will be familiar from these films (it is given non-exhaustively - simply to show that, as directors Wes Anderson or Woody Allen, for example, might have penchants or pet-themes that run through their films, even more so does Miyazaki, almost as if they are, as the case may be, running jokes, or leitmotifs) :

* Appearances / things not being what they seem (e.g. Princess Mononoke)

* Clouds / cloud formations (e.g. The Wind Rises)

* Flowers / blossoms (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle)

* Flying-machines (e.g. The Wind Rises, and IMDb (@IMDb) lists Miyazaki's short film called Imaginary Flying Machines (2002))

* Gluttony (e.g. Spirited Away)

* Helpful eccentrics / outsiders (e.g. Spirited Away)

* Literary adaptation (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle and the novel by Diana Wynne Jones)

* Noble blood / nobility in disguise (e.g. Spirited Away)

* Orphans (e.g. The Wind Rises)

* Powerful older women, behaving somewhat boisterously (e.g. Spirited Away)

* Railways (e.g. Spirited Away)

* The Industrial Revolution (in Western Europe) : factories, quarrying and the like (e.g. Princess Mononoke)

* Working / having to work menially to earn one’s keep (e.g. Spirited Away)


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Lost in Translation (albeit of the author’s / artist’s own making*… ?)

This is a review of Moomins on The Riviera (2014) (at Saffron Screen)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 August

This is a review of Moomins on The Riviera (2014), as seen at Saffron Screen (@Saffronscreen)

The following little comment tells one that one was not exactly in, say, the league of the unstinting values and quality of Sylvain Chomet’s L’Illusionniste (The Illusionist) (2010), or of Studio Ghibli (e.g. Spirited Away (2001)), with those of Moomins on The Riviera (2014) :

One almost took more pleasure in these, than in the story of Moomins on the Riviera (2015), at @Saffronscreen... :) pic.twitter.com/0YKqyeWWHi

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 1, 2015

Roughly speaking, one rated its various aspects thus :

1. The opening sequence (with Snuffkin, voyaging) – charming, inventive, and beautiful*

2. The voices – one really only takes issue with Moomin's**

3. The characterization**

4. Much of the generality of the animation***

5. The music (which is too often more like Muzak ?)

6. The story – few surprises in store



Little things to note (in no particular order) :

* You do look good without the stripes, too – the thinly disguised homoeroticism of a little dog, who thinks that he only likes cats (but has never approached any), whom Moominmamma helps by painting another dog to look like a cat (which is fine, until he is near water)

* Paying for things : sometimes this is an issue (e.g. when The Snork Maiden has to win cash at the casino to buy her bikini (and other outfits – and conveniently has a huge amount left over, just when needed by the plot), but elsewhere Moominmamma buys that paint (or Moomin hires a boat) without any means of payment

* Mymble (voiced by Alison O’Donnell) is flirtily fun, readily falling in with the idea of Stockholm Syndrome and fancying the pirates (who are so manly), but she (and they) are written out of the film when The Moomins sail off (even if Little Myy stows away) – just dealt with by a throwaway line at the end about how she missed Little Myy and so could not enjoy the pirates

* Many names of oriental origin appear in the voluminous animation credits – accounting for all those people, seen in silhouette at the outset of being on The Riviera (and then occasionally later), wearing conical hats ?

* The unexplained bag of creatures, collected and kept until the escape from the Keystone-Kops like mass of policemen, seem to correspond with the outlandish words from the Moomin books : Moominmamma, indeed, says (of The Grand) We simply don’t fit in – everything is simply too outlandish

* Moomin (innocently ?) does not seem much bothered where The Snork Maiden spent the night of the ball, only to see her with flashy Clark Tresco…


End-notes

* Arguably, to fit the storyline (and, really, the clue was in the title : Moomins do not belong on The Riviera, even if Tove Jansson did translate her own quirky characters there (their quirkiness, and her creativity, is there when we start the film, with Snuffkin…)), this lushness of life is to show that the grass was not greener (even if it was only The Snork Maiden’s celebrity interest, arbitrarily entertained, that ever suggested that it could be).

(Admittedly, Moominpappa quickly styled himself De Moomin to fit in (saying, of The Grand Hotel, It looks a bit big – or maybe I’m too small…) – and became florid in his fabulation – which (as she heard, and fell in, with all this) did not quite accord with Moominmamma’s naive desire to have us believe that she thought them to be literal guests, rather than paying ones.)

** Voiced by Russell Tovey, we have a highly tetchy and jealous Moomin (about the motor-boat : It can go to blazes, and so can you !), paired with a flighty / ambitious Snork Maiden (and no Snork) [although, according to http://moomin.wikia.com/wiki/The_Snork_Maiden, ‘She is very loyal to her friends and somewhat emotional’])

*** The lack of imagination, and detail, in the animation cannot simply be laid at the door of having to show the Riviera as a shallow, one-dimensional place*, because, although there are variations in the levels of detail / richness in the picture-frame, so much of the film fills space with animation that is just simple action (or loops of action) against an unmoving background, e.g. Moominpappa ascending the stairs with Marquis Mongaga at his mansion : it feels very much like a stop-gap for the eye-pleasing quality of the opening scenes (with their deft touches of real magic).


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Funnily enough, no Ginsberg in the entire film ! - or is there ?

This is a review of Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

5 June (5 May 2015, Tweet embedded)

This is a review of Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004)

A non-exhaustive of some key-words and principal themes in response to the screening of Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) last night in Picturehouse Cinemas’ (@picturehouses’) We [heart] Miyazaki retrospective :


* Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1450–1516) – paintings of his, such as The Garden of Earthly Delights or The Temptation of St Anthony, for The Castle itself

Howl's Moving Castle! @Film4 #Film4GhibliVote pic.twitter.com/LXTx4BjMxu

— TomPete(@tjthwaites) May 5, 2015

* Prometheus stealing fire from the gods – when Sophie, in the most florid location, sees back to a younger Howl (equally the third Harry Potter book, with the time-turner, and Harry mistaking his own Patronus

* Light / fight / fire / fireside / hearth

* Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books – for the sense of compassion for one’s foes, and for the notion that Howl, as warned by Calcifer, may not be able to change back, if he persists

* Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – the topos of the loathly lady in ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’

* So, also, Cocteau’s gorgeous La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and The Beast) (1946) (and one is beggared by the existence, according to IMDb, of a new take on the story !) - in Sophie’s loving Howl unconditionally, but failing to see her beauty, only his

* Sophie / Granny and Howl / Monster Howl have a connection across time and space - just as with Chihiro / Sen and Haku / Dragon Haku in Spirited Away (2001)

* Abundant flowers – also a feature of Spirited Away, and, more poignantly and sparingly so, The Wind Rises (2013)

* The alpine feel of the non-urban scenery – this could be Austria, or, as @jackabuss sees it, Snowdonia

* Contrasted with the slimy horribleness of the oozing men, made sinisterly jaunty by straw boaters or top hats

* The magical contract that binds someone to another – familiar from J. K. Rowling’s Dobby, but also Spirited Away

* The warfare and war-mongering – a link to that Narnia notion of doors into other worlds that @jackabuss also located, not least since The Pevensey Four have been evacuated on account of The Blitz


To be continued…


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The spirit of Alice ?

This is a review of Spirited Away (2001)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

30 May

This is a review of Spirited Away (Sento Chihirono kamikakushi) (2001)

As one will see, the original title of Spirited Away (2001) is longer, for it contains both names by which the principal character is known (Chihiro and Sen) :

People say 'a riot (or a symphony) of colour' - Spirited Away (Sento Chihirono kamikakushi) (2001) deserves other words for its flowers...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 29, 2014

Many a writer has dwelt on names,from, Shakespeare having Edgar in King Lear, say, become Poor Tom (or Viola adopting the name Cesario, when she pretends to be a male youth) to the question of the name of the narrator of Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman* to T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Naming of Cats’ (in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (as also brought to us by that Lloyd Webber)), or the significance of the names Ged and Sparrowhawk in Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (and other kindred writings).

Earthsea is relevant, because Goyo Miyazaki, son of this film’s writer / director, made Tales from Earthsea (2006) for Studio Ghibli, and one cannot conceive that the Le Guin books were not part of Hayao Miyazaki’s universe, too : not that the idea of the real name for something, which, if lost – or, more relevantly lost to another – has a bad outcome, does not also come to us from the Kaballah, or the wood […] where things have no names from Chapter III of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (to give it its proper title, and whose author was not Lewis Carroll, but he called himself so…).

Spirited Away even has a significant character called No Name**, one of several to cause mayhem at a strange sort of spa. Yet we have to get there first, and Chihiro’s father seems to think himself first a rally driver, then an explorer, and it is his wife and he, not their daughter, who want to go down the symbolic tunnel (= the birth cannel, a horizontal equivalent of Alice’s falling into Wonderland) : although we believe that Chihiro’s parents are behaving like children, who could expect to be prey to a sorceress such as The Odyssey’s Circe, we do unkindly agree with the early description of Chihiro as a cry-baby.

And with babies, such as Bo, we have another seeming Carroll reference, for his Duchess (in Chapter VIof Wonderland) not only has a baby, but one that also turns into a pig. Yubaba, Bo’s mother, as well as being a sort of Thatcher figure***, resembles John Tenniel’s drawings for the Duchess (as engraved for the book) – Mari Natsuki provides the voice for her and her sister Zeniba, who appears to be a twin, if not in character and temperament, in a power-struggle with Yubaba.

A baby, whose pacification is the mother’s object, is also so rich in meaning from, amongst others, Freudian theory to Terry Gilliam’s animations and, of course, Eraserhead (1977). What is unavoidable here is that Bo is massive, and, when he returns after the trip with Chihiro to see Zeniba, Yubaba is surprised that he can talk, which, whatever all this means in the world of the film that Miyazaki has scripted, strongly hints at Bo having been infantilized by his mother :

One is reminded of Hugh Kenner****, being drawn into analysing the names of the characters in Beckettt’s play Endgame : although he finds a pattern in the fact that Hamm could be ‘hammer’, Clov -> French ‘clou’ = ‘nail’, etc., and we are clearly meant to congratulate Kenner for his ingenuity, he abruptly decides As so often, we are being teased by hints of system, not to be much pursued. How far, then, does one go, because oriental culture is, of course, at least as much to do with, say, dragons as the world of Earthsea, and Le Guin is therefore taking her lead from it in the origins and nature that she gives to these creatures ?

So probably it is only at enormous length, and weighing all the possible sources and influences, that one could attempt to enter into the creative place where Miyazaki drew up this world on the far side of the tunnel – maybe he actually saw, somewhere, a railway running through the water, and enlarged the conception. Yet he may also have had Carroll in mind again, this time Chapter III of Through The Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There) (to give it its proper title) :

Here we have a Guard, asking for tickets (and the dislocation of scale that it brings about, in In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage.), and a very queer carriage-full of passengers altogether (‘There was a Beetle sitting next to the Goat’, etc.). Plus there is the language of criticism, for the dream-like inadequacy of Alice’s not having a ticket, mixed with puns, mishearings, and even a chorus of a great many voices. Chihiro is clearly in the mould of Alice (and her archetypes), for additionally she :

* As Alice does, with the Caucus-race (Wonderland, Chapter III), reverses roles with her parents – they have the childish impulse at the start to explore, which Chihiro dreads and so is urging caution, and Alice seems ever more serious than the Dodo, Duck or pontificating Mouse

* Is plucky, and, despite people mocking or chastising her (e.g. being called, according to the English sub-titles, a klutz two or three times, especially by Lin, although she wants to help), gets to the end of her journey – which, as in the case of both Alice books, is home***** (or, equally, Kansas in the case of The Wizard of Oz (1939), where Dorothy’s uncle, amongst others, has become transmuted into The Scarecrow in her dream, delirium, dislocation)

* Is given, therefore, the same hard time that Alice is, but shows her mettle and her other qualities – as well as finding a long-lost companion (lost in memory) in Haku

* Recognizes Haku when transformed, helps him in reciprocation of his help and in valuing him for who he is, and rights matters with Zeniba – Alice, too, is almost ever the peace-maker in the face of the irascible (The Duchess has been mentioned above, but there is equally The Red Queen), not to mention the homicidal Queen of Hearts

* Comes to the point where she relates to the logic of this other world so that she can grudgingly impress Yubaba and secure being able to leave it – in Alice’s case, it may just be trying to shake sense into The Red Queen / Dinah, but that is because Carroll’s world is a far more ostensibly and consistently dream-laden one (as Oz is, too, not least with those drowsying poppies)


Thus, Spirited Away is awash with possibility, and probably nineteenth-century parallel (Carroll’s Duchess has a frog doorman…), but it is far from being about mere story (or fantastic creatures) – or worth watching just for that. Seeing Sen negotiating the main building (for Chihiro is become Sen by now), when the principal emphasis is on ascent, one notices, even only out of the corner of one’s eye, a floral panel on the woodwork – or, as Sen, led by Haku, hurries through the gardens, one can go with the speed. Yet it will always be there, they will always be going where they are going, and one can actually luxuriate in what seem to be azaleas, lilies…

Elsewhere, in quiet moments, Miyazaki more obviously shows us a painter’s view of things – featherings, shading, effects so unlike the near-static depiction of the characters, however fantastical, gluttonous, or repulsively disgusting. Not just a Zen view, but also contrasting the muddy, slimy reality of this allegorical resort (money-laundering, corruption, and greed spring instantly to mind) with the other world and its values and reality. As commented on in reviewing The Wind Rises (2013), where these touches of colour are lighter and fewer, one can imagine an artist’s studio, where the artist reserves certain faces, details or tasks, but delegates the other work to assistants, who can be trusted to do it of a piece : can one not easily imagine Miyazaki, who doubtless did not carelessly call his enterprise Studio Ghibli, painstakingly paying attention to the features that he best wants portrayed ?


End-notes

* Tristram being the wrong name, with all that follows from it, as well as Sterne adopting, at his friends’ urging, calling his property at Coxwold Shandy Hall after his work in progress.

** Which reminds one that Wilkie Collins gave that title to one of his novels, because names are powerful, and not having one can be devastating.

*** One can contemplate the points of similarity easily enough, but does the name Yubaba only contain the childish word for ‘baby’ in the English form ?

**** In A Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckettt (Syracuse University Press, 1996, pp. 120–121).

***** Even if Alice gets back either by challenging the pack of cards to be any more than that, or shaking The Red Queen until she becomes Dinah…


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)