#11

ポニョ最低。

This film is a total piece of shit. I cannot find anything redeeming or even watchable.

Having grown up with Miyazaki films, I have found a tendency to think that each respective film's theme song shows whether or not I will like the film. And this movie's song, is terrible. It is the little girl who does Ponyo's voice and some old man whom I don't know. When the film was released, this pair went on TV frequently and sang with the crowd totally into it. But this is a horrible song. However, it is the culture of Japan that accepts and promotes a shitty song just because it is the theme song of a Miyazaki film. However, nevertheless, the quality of the song mirrors that of the film. The visuals of the film is like a storybook background with animated characters. It does not fit. Both the visuals and the story do not work at all. All of it, is down right horrible. Sad, but true.

#10

Howl's Moving Castle has a totally different "look" than any of Miyazaki's previous films. Its animation takes place on multiple levels and directions (a quality that is natural to live action cinema but a recent endeavor for animated works). However I found that all these layers were not in complete sync. The road was moving a little too fast behind Sophie compared to her speed and the speed of the clouds in the sky and so fourth. This was like watching the scales on a fish or reptile move independently of each other during movement instead of unified. This attempt at a more "natural" or "complex" animation resonated with the movement of Howl's castle. This movement I found a pleasure to watch. The difference between these two may be that the former placed this aesthetic all around the frame while the latter took place on a traditional flat background.

As is true in all cases of seeing something new, it could be that my eyes were not used to seeing this on the screen. It may be because I have grown up with the traditional flat look of Japanese animation, but I think there is something wonderous in that. This attempt to cinematize animation is a little much...

#9

This next film that we watched, Spirited Away, signifies many different points in Miyazaki's career for me. For one, it is the film where he became dull for me. All the films after this one, I do not like. Even if the films have some good moments, they do not constitute a good film at whole. I wonder why this is, but I can't really grasp it. A friend of mine said that it is this film that Miyazaki started to cut corners - such as in the scene with Chihiro running down stairs. In his past works, he would have actually animated the character going down stairs. However in this piece, the character stayed still while it was the stairs that moved underneath her.

Also when I saw this film for the first time, I really recognized Miyazaki's continued usage of the grandmother character with the distinctive nose. And upon looking back at this, I actually see that it is not in so many of his films that there is such a character. In Japan, it is common knowledge that Miyazaki loves this character, but she has not appeared as much as we may expect.

Another thing I do not understand is how the American film academia can give wonderful remarks about this film and his later films, but fails to do so for his earlier and obviously better work...

#8

Watching princess mononoke is an interesting experience for me because it is apparent that it takes place in japan but nevertheless not a specific time or place. Even in this ambiguity however, there is a definite "japanese-ness" to both the story, characters, and nuances. In thinking further about these such nuances, especially those linked to a certain common history or lineage, I wonder which came first. Much like the question of whether the egg or the hen came first, I think this nuance is a matter like that. I am unsure whether a group of people had a common nuance which then became a symbolic representation of the values of that group, or if there was something inherent in this particular grouping of individuals that made them prone to a certain type of aesthetic.

One instance I thought this was that in the film, only san and ashitaka's hair are animated. Everyone else's are not. This makes them stick out against the other characters but also plays at the japanese sensibility of moving hair (seen recently in video games and anime) I wonder whether this aesthetic is something inherent in those with a Japanese background. I myself find moving hair attractive and identify myself with it, but why?