I Know, I Know, It's A Cartoon...

I really, really hate to admit this because I don’t need any help making myself seem like a nerd, but I have been watching a lot of anime lately. Before you stop reading, and I know it may be tempting, consider this: The best way, in my humble opinion, to learn what a culture really values, sincerely enjoys, and is utterly terrified of is by watching their films. Every Japanese movie I have ever seen has been either a chilling horror flick or anime. I suppose it is a way of telling a great story while subtly teaching morals to a younger generation without being preachy, and that subtlety is what makes Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky such a good movie.

When I was probably five or six, I remember watching another one of his movies, called Kiki’s Delivery Service. There was a preview before it which read Coming Soon in 1999! before showing a one minute trailer for Castle in the Sky. As a little girl, I remember desperately wanting to see it, but being too afraid to rent it. (Air pirates and cannons are scary!) Recently, a friend of mine asked me if I like Miyazaki movies, and that sent me back about ten years to when watching cartoons all the time was socially acceptable. I rediscovered Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service before stumbling upon (you guessed it!) Castle in the Sky. I didn’t plan on actually enjoying it, but I watched it as sort of a portal back to my five year old life. I was pleasantly surprised when, after about three minutes, I was hooked.

The first thing I really noticed about this movie was the animation. It’s gorgeous. It’s clear and sophisticated and detailed. The plot is fairly original, too, which made it easy to watch. The story follows a young girl named Sheeta who is in possession of a magical crystal, the missing link between our world and Laputa, the floating castle. She befriends a boy named Pazu and a motley gang of air pirates as they try to discover Laputa before the evil government representatives do. The plot is second in importance to the characters, though, especially those of Sheeta and Pazu. Both orphans, they don’t have anyone but each other to depend on from the moment they meet. The audience roots for Pazu from the start because of the way he treats Sheeta. He is very caring and it is obvious he would give anything for her. Sheeta herself is strong and smart, a fearsome combination in any movie. Together, they make an adorable set of friends. If anything bad had happened to either of them, I probably would have cried (and I don’t cry at movies).

Something else really worth mentioning is the score. Written by Joe Hisaishi, it is haunting and beautiful in all the right places. Most importantly, it knows when to disappear, and let there be silence. In the Disney release, the score is different from the original (still good, but different) and it intrudes into some of the empty space. The mark of a good score is when the audience misses it in its absence. I am seriously considering buying the entire CD.

One final thing that stuck me about this movie was the fact that, unlike so many children’s movies today, it did not treat the audience like a bunch of feeble-minded babies. It did not jam its kind little moral down the viewers’ throats. There was no Aesop’s Fables transparency, no cute little sum up, yet the moral was clearly imparted even without these things. It takes a good storyteller to master the art of nuance. There was more than one moral, too, and I think that every person who watches this movie will take something different away from it. That’s why I loved it so much; while the story was a bit predictable, the details were refreshing and surprising. Maybe if all cartoons were as delicate, complex, and sincere as Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky, I wouldn’t be so embarrassed to admit my frequent viewing.

"Take root in the ground, live in harmony with the wind, plant your seeds in the Winter, and rejoice with the birds in the coming of Spring."

Watch the trailer here: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3437035801/

With Canned Pineapple Comes Universal Truth

Chungking Express. I was pre-disposed to like this film. I read about it in a memoir where it helped a struggling hero through a rough patch in his life, and I wanted it to fill me with the same feelings of hope and optimism. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. Having only ever watched one other subtitled film to date, I didn’t have an accurate platform on which to decide whether or not I was in for an afternoon of hard work. I was pleasantly surprised when the film presented itself to me with a complex form of simplicity; that is to say it is complicated to describe, but a simple pleasure to watch. Unlike Pulp Fiction, or any other film I’ve seen with two or more seemingly unrelated plots, I wasn’t tempted to figure anything out. I was more than content to sit back and watch, captivated, as two very un-extraordinary plots unfolded.

In the first, a tasteful homage to film noir, a lovesick cop meets a mysterious blonde woman at a bar. Both simply seek the comfort of another human being, and they find it in each other. After that night, they never meet again within the confines of the film. As I have just described it, the plot sounds lacking and mundane, but the combination of superb acting and cinematography add elements of enthusiasm and excitement to the story. The moments were undeniably real, the dialogue is perfect, and the cinematography is breathtaking. There is one scene where the blonde woman is running down a crowded street. She is in soft focus, and every other person appears like a headlight in an overexposed photograph. For lack of a better description, it’s beautiful.

The second story follows yet another cop as he copes with the loss of one girlfriend and the potential gain of another. By this point, the genre had made a clean switch to a more buoyant yet realistic take on the romantic comedy. Both the cop, played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai, and the girl, played by Faye Wong, gave performances which, to me, epitomized honesty. I have never wanted to be in love more than I do after watching this film. The stories, though unrelated by characters, focused on a small take-out restaurant called Midnight Express, which acted as a thread to tie together the two plots. By watching Chungking Express, I have discovered the frailty of language barriers. While I did make use of the English subtitles offered to me on the DVD menu, I could understand by the actors’ expressions and movements what was happening, especially in the second half. These actors proved that watching something as simple as everyday life can be interesting, and as humans, we want to see those pure, unadulterated moments of joy and sorrow which go hand in hand in this film. We want reassurance that everything in our lives will work out for the best, even if all we have for proof is a smile and a Chinese cover of a Cranberries’ song to latch on to before the credits roll. To me, a good film is one that captures the essence of what it truly means to live, to laugh, and to love, even in the face of hardship and heartbreak. Chungking Express is most certainly a good film.

“If memories could be canned would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.”

Here is the English version of the trailer. Sorry for the low quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkyRcGGeq8E&feature=related