Spirited Away by the work of Hayao Miyazaki

At least one animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, best known at the moment for the wonderful Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), and Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime), deserve to be on the DVD shelf of every home around the globe, replacing the more popular, but less-deserving, Disney. Disney, at least, has noticed Miyazaki's talent and currently distribute his films outside of his native Japan.

My opinion of Miyazaki's work, which had been high after viewing both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, climbed to new heights after watching two of his earlier pieces, My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds (Kaze no tani no Naushika). These four films can be grouped loosely into two, because of the themes and characters explored.

Both Princess Mononoke (1997) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds (1984) are set in a transfigured Earth. In Princess Mononoke it is Asia's past, in which myth and magic are intertwined with ecological conflict to produce a film full of wonder and awe. Miyazaki's much earlier work, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds, is set in Earth's future, where a man-made apocalypse has decimated the countryside, poisoning it and creating a new landscape of plants and creatures in which humanity must learn to live under difficult conditions. The heroes of both film are women: Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä, though both are ably helped by a man. Interestingly, their antagonists are women who are strong-willed leaders who are convinced their path will lead their people to a better way of life.

Thankfully, Miyazaki does not do simplistic dualities; the villains are shown to be single-minded, but acting under a different set of concerns than Mononoke or Nausicaä. They do not see the environmental impact of their actions, because they are fixated on helping their people - Miyazaki underlines that you cannot help one if you ignore the other. Both of these films show Miyazaki's interest in issues to do with ecology and the environment, and both of them border on preachiness, which mars the films somewhat. What Miyazaki does achieve via his masterful artwork is to evoke the intangible mystery and wonder present in Nature, and to show how robust it is against human tampering, but how utterly fragile it can be when it is thrown out of balance completely.

These are themes that crop up in Japanese anime frequently, and I have to assume that this is partly due to the nation's collective experience of the atomic bomb devastating their country and culture. Miyazaki was born during World War II, and his family made their money from making wingtips for Zero fighters during the war. He felt guilty as a child growing up with a comfortable life from the profits of war. Perhaps it's not so surprising that he eventually became a communist. As he matured, he became disenchanted with communism and he later claimed that the writing of Nausicaä had more to do with his departure from communism that the collapse of the communist bloc.

If anything Miyazaki is an optimistic humanist, who believes it is humanity's noblest virtues - love, honesty and courage - that carry us through the struggles of life. This is noticeable in the actions of both Mononoke and Nausicaä who both risk their lives in order to set the world to rights in a just and fair manner.

Article Author: Maura McHugh

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