New Hayao Miyazaki movie: Kaze Tachinu

[greg]

So he's getting flack for being negative about Japan's war? Much of the movie's dialogue pertaining to such things was beyond my Japanese comprehension. If he is negative about Japan starting a war with China and America, then that should at least give him a boost in those two countries. Maybe it's the Japanese uyoku types who are criticizing him for it. I'll have to read up about this.

[usamimi]

I can't find the article I read about it, but this one's short and gives you an idea at least: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a ... lists.html

[gaijinpunch]

He's pretty outspoken, and has made his thoughts on violence, destruction of environment, and nuclear energy known. Any chance the people bitching are imperialists?

[robodaz]

So he's getting flack for being negative about Japan's war? Much of the movie's dialogue pertaining to such things was beyond my Japanese comprehension. If he is negative about Japan starting a war with China and America, then that should at least give him a boost in those two countries. Maybe it's the Japanese uyoku types who are criticizing him for it. I'll have to read up about this.

I can't find the article I read about it, but this one's short and gives you an idea at least: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a ... lists.html

From reading the broadsheet and magazine reviews (as well as discussing the matter at work/home/at the shop), there are two main types of criticism. There are indeed grumblings from the right parties, who seem to think that any criticism of Japan's part in the war is unhelpful and should be avoided (at the same time insisting on the right to hold up all those memorialized at Yasakuni as martyr-heroes... In fact, I find the closing element to a direct stab at the mythmaking which surrounds that very shrine. Miyazaki to my mind is not portraying a naive dreamer, but a man swept up by his time and attempting to cope with the impact of his actions... Things that cannot be avoided.

In one interview he himself even commented on the way in which the Horikoshi Jiro is memorialised in Japan is very different to the way the British view Reginald Mitchell. Both working at the same time, both facing the same issues and both ultimately giving over their technology to a critical war effort. Only the outcome of the war changes the definitions - and, in the latter day, the criticism.

However, there is a larger, though not as politically motivated group of families complaining that it was not a children friendly film (indeed, I saw a morning show over the weekend featuring a report on how it would not the film to at Obon). I really think people expected another Laputa, or Totoro, forgetting that every one of Miyzaki's films have addressed similar concerns in one way or another...

[greg]

Yeah, that's dumb. People forget that Miyazaki also made Mononoke Hime, and that was certainly not a children's movie either. I think he should be free to make other movies than just stuff like Ponyo and Totoro. Kaze Tachinu is certainly his most serious and least action-oriented movie, but it certainly does feature grandiose visuals that are unmistakably Miyazaki in nature.

[robodaz]

I agree... Yet, in many ways I wonder how much Ghibli have done this to themselves...

They courted the idea that Miyazaki is the Disney of Japan, they have made a massive push towards family with the Mitaka Museum, the Ghibli Stores and so on.

It is almost as if Miyazaki has been branded out of his own legacy... Or, more acurately Mr. Suzuki has. It was interesting that, for the first time I received a Ghibli questionnaire on seeing the film the the second time last week. Even then, a week after its launch the audience was still full of kids, the youngest being a babe-in-arms. No word of a lie that a dozen families left during the course of the screening taking their discomforted children with them...

[greg]

No word of a lie that a dozen families left during the course of the screening taking their discomforted children with them...

Hyperbole, for sure! If anything, their child was "bored to death," as if that's even possible. It held my 5 year old's attention. She got slightly restless towards the end, but she was looking forward to playing in the playground just outside the theater afterwards. I can imagine a child getting upset being dragged off to see some horror movie, but there is nothing unsettling in this movie whatsoever. (Well, there was the scene when the guy's fiancee was coughing up blood, but other than that...)

[robodaz]

I do not lie, and I resent the implication.

I can also count.

Take it, or leave it, but - as with all things - I saw what I saw and i will tell you what I tell my post-grads: I am here only to represent what is, and if you cannot come to grips with that, then this is your own problem....

[greg]

I do not lie, and I resent the implication.

I can also count.

Take it, or leave it, but - as with all things - I saw what I saw and i will tell you what I tell my post-grads: I am here only to represent what is, and if you cannot come to grips with that, then this is your own problem....

Wait... I thought I was agreeing with you? I am having a hard time understanding you. Perhaps it's the way you write, but there's some assumed context lost on me.

[robodaz]

I know I've lived here for decades, but I don't think my Japanese has replaced my English just yet.

However, I thought it was clear. An accusation of hyperbole is an accusation of lies. All I am saying is I know how my people I saw, and what they did - as I thought it was unusual enough to note. I can't pretend to know why they walked out, or even why they walked in though....

Any road up though... Suffice to say that there is - as evidenced in both press and in person - some grumbling in the community about what is, in the final analysis an excellent, and thought provoking film.