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Winning Us Over: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
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Several years ago, I discovered that a good friend, although thoroughly versed in fantasy literature, had never read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. (This was before the movies came out.) I badgered her into reading the trilogy, arguing that her knowledge and understanding of modern fantasy wasn’t complete. After finishing LOTR, my friend acknowledged that the books were good and obviously originated much in the genre today but also said that she found it difficult to see what the big deal was. Other fantasy writers, she felt, by this time have surpassed Tolkien—have taken his ideas and moved them beyond ground zero, if you will.
Though I disagreed with her, my friend’s thoughts were interesting. And recently I gave them new consideration when I first saw Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, out on DVD a few months ago. The average American film viewer won’t understand the significance of this official release: For two decades North American anime audiences have awaited the film that was the anime master's first directed feature and shown in Japanese theaters in 1985 to enormous acclaim.
So, given all the hype, I didn’t know what to think after my initial viewing. Though considered Miyazaki’s masterpiece, at first Nausicaa seemed limp and pale, lacking the stunning glory of his 2001 production, Spirited Away. I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about. What makes this movie Miyazaki’s best, compared to Spirited Away’s exuberance and yearning?
In Nausicaa, the filmmaker now known as Japan's Walt Disney first featured his typical cast of characters alongside what has become his most recurrent themes: people living harmoniously (or not) with nature and each another, environmental waste, and—like Tolkien—the rural/natural versus the mechanical/technological. The film’s particular story involves the titular figure, a young girl trying to prevent her beautiful valley from being destroyed by environmental toxins and the effects of a war her people didn’t cause and are virtually powerless to prevent. And the film also contains a prescient parallel for our time to which I keep returning: In struggling to bring peace to her valley, Nausicaa works against her filmic counterpart, a princess-general of the more technologically advanced Tolkmenian empire. The Tolkmenians, although desiring peace, attempt to create it by unifying all countries surrounding them through force. The Tolkmenian attitude—“if you’re not with us, you’re against us”—echoes an eerily familiar political mantra these days.
So, then, why is Nausicaa Miyazaki’s finest work—compared to, for example, Spirited Away or Castle in the Sky, or any of his other movies? One response might be that Nausicaa was a watershed creation in anime: Miyazaki’s themes and stylistic influences in Nausicaa can be seen in later, equally powerful anime productions that include the TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi exploration of the human psyche and The Vision of Escaflowne, a fantasy story about coming of age in a fearful world and choosing responsibility and accepting love. But having watched the film again, I’m still unable to answer that question—and don't think that it even matters anymore. Simply, it represents the filmmaker’s efforts toward one end of a spectrum: the movie’s just as lovely as Spirited Away, though perhaps quieter, more graceful. Miyazaki seems determined to slip under his viewers’ defenses—to win us over rather than to wow us—to show (as any master storyteller does) rather than to tell, through Nausicaa’s courage, determination, and self-sacrifice, how natural harmony can be achieved and social understanding can be restored; how—ultimately—faith, hope, and love remain.
For more on Miyazaki's life and oeuvere, and more information about Studio Ghibli, visit Nausicaa.net, the best unofficial English-language Hayao Miyazaki fansite.
Posted by Shelley Wunder-Smith at May 2, 2005 12:02 AM
Comments
I found this site via Jason Apuzzo's blog Libertas:
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/index.php
Its cool to see reviews of Japanese anime. I have never seen Nausicaa but I have seen "Kiki's Delivery Service" and another Studio Ghilbi production "The Cat Returns", although "The Cat Returns" were not directed by Miyazaki. From what I heard about Nausicaa these other movies are not as serious but they make great family friendly entertainment.
Posted by: Michael Kim at May 2, 2005 5:57 PM
If you haven't seen Nausicaa yet or even Spirited Away (review to come shortly), and you like anime, then you definitely should make them a priority. At this point, they represent the range, of sorts, of Miyazaki's work, though it will be interesting to see what Howl's Moving Castle is like when it comes out in mid-June. (That will be his first non-original or non-Japanese-based work.)
Kiki's Delivery Service is definitely more light-hearted than some of Miyazaki's other films, though it does have good "messages" about becoming part of a community, fitting in, etc. (Parents who might be worried about the fact that the heroine's a witch should consider whether or not they let their kids read Harry Potter -- it's even more mild than that.) I for one am glad that Disney's finally released the subtitled version on DVD -- while I like Kirsten Dunst well enough, the dubbed version of the movie that was solely available for so long was just wretched.
Posted by: Shelley Wunder-Smith at May 8, 2005 11:01 PM