Japanese Movie and Children’s Life Source
Yet another fabulous movie by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
Have you ever seen Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro? If not hurry to the video store and get them out on DVD.
Hayao Miyazaki is a famous Japanese director and animator and his 2001 movie Spirited Away was the highest-grossing film ever in Japan! One of the interesting things about Miyazaki is that almost all his movies have deep messages about humanity and their connection with the natural elements. Another important aspect is his, often very strong, leading female characters like Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service and San in Princess Mononoke.
In his latest movie, called Ponyo on the Cliff, he depicts a submerged world where prehistoric fish roam the streets. Uniquely, for today, the movie consists of 170,000 hand painted cells – created without the whizz-bang computer technology currently available to animators.
To prepare and study aspects of this movie, Miyazaki lived in a old house in a small fishing port near Hiroshima. He daily watched the sea and the fishermen who worked in it to study their behaviour for the movie. He states “I couldn’t believe how people would trash the sea, there was more garbage in their dragnets than fish. And after they collected the garbage, they threw it back in!”. In all his movies he advocates living simply without mod-cons. “Computer games rob children of the precious time they have to be children. Their life source, their energy is being drained out of them by this virtual world” he believes. “Humans have to indulge in every whim. It is like a kind of social disease”.
“Ponyo is an exploration of how humans might cope when all the stupefying extravagances of modern life have been taken away by the flood”.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 15-08-09
Ponyo is a movie for kids and adults alike just like Kiki Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro. Princess Mononoko and Spirited Away are more suitable for older kids and adults.
Hayao Miyazaki has made many more wonderful and amazing animations for more details click on the links below:
Video interview with Hayao Miyazaki
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L0YgdIpXas
Trailer of Ponyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_LH6C_uXis
And if you are in Japan you can visit the Ghibli Museum but you need to book in advance!
http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en
And if you like to buy some of the great Ghibli Merchandise click here:
http://loveghibli.ecrater.com
Much of the information in this blog has been sourced from The Sydney Morning Herald, 15-08-09.
