The cryptic death of Studio Ghibli in fitting fantastical animation.

Presentation:

Hayao Miyazaki creates another visually splendid world filled with symbolism from his own life. The images are recognizably Ghibli with its signature impressionistic and painterly qualities. The music is less profound than other films and also has inconsistent pacing. The film is quite slow, making you think that half the film is a realistic drama, only until halfway do we get the mystical and fantastical universe we know and love from Studio Ghibli. From there, the film gets increasingly magical, ramping up at jarring pace until the climax. Visually the film is wildly imaginative, however, the story is completely self-indulgent making it nearly impossible for anyone to fully understand its underlying meaning.

Story:

The film is an autobiography of Hayao Miyazaki’s life. In order to understand it, you’d have to already be familiar with Miyazaki’s difficult personal life. From the beginning, we see war depicted in one of the most nightmarish and ghostly ways we’ve seen from Studio Ghibli. This harkens back to his childhood, born in 1941 engulfed in WWII. Since a young age, his first memories were of burning buildings. His mother also was bedridden in the hospital with tuberculosis, however she did not die until much later in his life unlike the film. In the movie, Mahito’s mother leaves him a book titled, “How do you live?” before she dies, which references a real book Miyazaki received from his mother. Mahito enters a world created by his granduncle, lured in by the gray heron, a trickster that always lies. Inside, he realizes this world is full of malice, suffering and even violent survival. Pelicans and parakeets are brought into this world by the master, but everything needs to eat and they end up being forced to starve and eat the cute warawara, spiritual apparitions representing the souls of humanity. Throughout the journey, he ultimately commits a heinous transgression to save his step mother Natsuko in the delivery room where he calls out as her mother instead. Mahito teams up with a young girl Mimi through her fire magic, whom is also his future mother. Fire is both a source of his despair as well as protection. When he meets the maker of the world, the granduncle, he reveals he has been called into this world in order to inherit it and craft it however he sees fit, hopefully with peace, beauty and love. He ultimately declines because he is full of malice as a result of self harm to his head. He returns to the real world and lives life normally.

Analysis:

There are a few key pieces of dialogue that unravel the intent for this film. In the climax of the film, Mahito has a discussion with his granduncle, the creator of the world. When he declines to inherit this world, the creator asks, “You’ll return to a foolish world of rampant murder and thievery?” This line is very telling of Miyazaki’s disposition toward the real world. As a known pacifist, Miyazaki is known to have a very cynical and skeptic personality, often memed for having an empty box of hopes and dreams. It’s apparent that he views animation as an escape from the harshness of the real world, which he is on record for saying is rubbish. The magical world in the film is a metaphor for animation, which has allowed Miyazaki to imagine ideal worlds, free from cruelty. However, Miyazaki is getting old, and from interviews and behind the scenes, Miyazaki has been looking for a successor to continue his animation legacy. His son Goro was supposed to take the mantle, but Miyazaki publicly berated his work, citing it as not good enough, even terrible. Quite an estranged relationship for this obssessively absent father. So the film fitting ends with the mystical world collapsing, apparently Studio Ghibli is to be acquired by Nippon TV after finding no suitable successor. The heron in the film represents deception and malice, but also Mahito’s guide. It metaphorically drove Miyazaki to the animated universe, but the obsession for a perfect successor has also corrupted his vision with , hurting many people along the way. For example, the parakeets are trapped and suffering in the world. It is quite apparent that these birds represent the animators, whom are overworked in Japans oppressively brutal work culture. Anime is a brutal industry for the hand drawn animators. The pelicans represent another group that Miyazaki has abused and there are surely many other metaphors such as the protective aunts that represent aspects of Miyazaki’s personal life, though I obviously don’t know Miyazaki’s life well enough to pinpoint every reference he is making. But it personally get the feeling that this film is extending a half hearted apology for how he has tried to drag his loved ones into a toxic search for a successor to his legacy. The book referenced in the film is titled “How do you live?” Miyazaki has publicly replied he doesn’t know the answer. This film presents the question but the answer is ambiguous. In the end, Mahito returns to reality, and calls Natsuko his mother. He also lets go of his mother/Himi suggesting that he is able to move on with several aspects of his life, likely very personal, none of our business and impossible to know. A very difficult question to answer for someone looking for existential purpose, a common dilemma in Japanese society.

Conclusion:

A beautiful film that is deeply personal to an unreasonable level. I don’t know how many audiences are curious enough about Miyazaki’s personal life to understand this film, but for those that are, this film should be rich with context. It’s still not a particularly cohesive or even good script, which feels disjointed as a result of Miyazki forcibly injecting so much of his life experience into the story. But along the way, there’s always a spark of magic that makes each Ghibli movie a wonderful fantasy. Studio Ghibli is reaching its end, but perhaps it’s okay. Miyazaki wants to make another film and maybe we can accept that it won’t always be the same.

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