Whisper of the Heart

Rather than the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-style whimsy promised by a theatrical release poster that depicts our teenage heroine ascending into the sky, a dandified feline on her arm, Whisper of the Heart is instead locked, with its feet firmly on the ground. Although dreamy landscapes untroubled by gravity do (briefly) appear in Yoshifumi Kondo's film, for the most part Whisper exists in packed and cluttered urban spaces. These environments do slowly take on a picturesque quality though, partially thanks to the beautifully painted medium presenting them but also the ups and downs experienced by the lovebird protagonists. Nostalgic in terms of depicting a bygone emotional bandwidth for an older viewer rather than any specific kind of toy. Whisper then deals in contrasts: the physical restraint of living in a box room, trapped under piles of books, or the freedom felt when traversing the vaulting greenery of a nearby hill, tamed by winding, concrete embellishments. 

Whisper does tell its story with the odd fairy tale flourish - bookworm Shizuku Tsukishima follows a haughty cat through the back alleys surrounding an educational campus, pressing deeper into dark, unclaimed scrubland - but these journeys only ever take her from her own, cramped working class neighbourhood to a staggered, upper middle class conclave. The jewel of this gated community is an antique shop that hardly ever seems to be open. Peering though the window, Tsukishima spies all sorts of treasures and claimed curios that immediately fire her idling imagination. Written by Hayao Miyazaki and based on a manga written and illustrated by Aoi Hiiragi, Whisper is a patient, empathetic look at the listlessness experienced by children fast approaching adulthood and not really having any idea what they want to do with themselves. It's not that Tsukishima is a dull person either, she's fit to bursting with ideas inherited from a childhood spent checking out books from her local library. 

Tsukishima feels a responsibility to do something with the incredible creative faculty that she has cultivated, one that isn't always compatible with more immediate concerns, such as the high school entrance exams that are creeping ever closer. As well as exploring and legitimising her own aspirations through sustained hard work, there's also a hint of penance in the punishing schedule that Tsukishima sets for herself when writing her own fantasy story. This contrition apparently some sort of atonement for thinking so little of a boy, Seiji Amasawa, who was (at first) a confounding presence in her life before he, very casually, revealed some deeply romantic hidden depths. Tsukishima seems to note some deficit in herself when considering her prospective boyfriend; some way in which he has raced ahead of her with his own dreams. Come the finale, when Amasawa attempts to gallantly bike the pair up a steep incline, Tsukishima dismounts and begins pushing, stating that she will not be a burden to any man. 

The Wind Rises

It's hard to shake the idea that Hayao Miyazaki's latest (last?) is an autobiography of sorts. The Wind Rises is a film about the creative impulse and how it shapes lives. Miyazaki's Jiro Horikoshi is obsessed with aviation. In his dreams he communes with his idea of Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni. The Count encourages the short-sighted child to channel his passion into engineering. These meetings are scattered throughout the film, steering Horikoshi through his career. Interestingly, there's very little attempt to discredit these sequences with the kind of visual language usually associated with fantasies. They're lucid, instructive encounters that impart wisdoms and reorganise failure. Horikoshi's subconscious readings actualised as a paternal, jovial hero. There's also an idea that Horikoshi lacks any true peers, so he must create them himself.

Anyway, back to the idea of the film as Miyazaki's account of himself. Horikoshi is a slight smoker who loses himself in intricately detailed drawings. His life is experienced in short bursts, usually built around particular aircraft projects. Friends and family drop in and out the film, usually with little fanfare. Close associates describe him as insensitive and unfeeling, tallying with the Miyazaki alluded to in One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island. Work consumes Horikoshi, leaving very little time for anyone else. He has his stationary and his cigarettes, he doesn't need anything else. Even experiencing deep emotional turmoil, Horikoshi continues to scribble away. This single-mindedness is such that when Horikoshi falls in love, it actually feels like an upset in trajectory. Maybe Naoko endures because she's a constant? Despite her illness she requires minimal upkeep, she's happy to spend her evenings holding Horikoshi's hand while he drafts planes. In describing this it strikes me that this sounds like a lopsided, even abusive relationship. It's actually nothing of the kind, Horikoshi and Naoko share a deep romantic love built on an unselfconscious stability. As with the rest of Miyazaki's films this is passion expressed through small physical gestures, and self-sacrifice. They're in this together, that's enough for them.

Chage & Aska - On Your Mark

Or Ghibli Experimental Theater On Your Mark. Completed, as a distraction, during the production of Princess Mononoke when Hayao Miyazaki was suffering through a particularly dreary case of writer's block. On Your Mark allowed Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli the opportunity to experiment with the kind of computer and cel animation blending techniques that would go on to inform the twisted demon flesh sequences seen in Mononoke.

GOD WARRIOR

One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island

Why watch a film of slight consequence in an ever-rolling shonen maxi-fiction? Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island is directed by Mamoru Hosoda, an ascending star of Japanese animation, responsible for the award winning The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and the upcoming reality bender Summer Wars. Secret Island is simultaneously notable for ratcheting a feverish disquiet in fixed genre fictioning, whilst also playing as an extended allegory for Hosoda's brief, unhappy, stint at Studio Ghibli - Hosoda was originally contracted as the director of Howl's Moving Castle, leaving in the midst of production to be replaced by a fresh-out-of-retirement Hayao Miyazaki.

Secret Island isn't the first time Hosoda has dabbled in brand either, his Digimon movie shorts Digimon Adventure and Our War Game attracted a great deal of positive attention, a success instrumental in landing him the Ghibli gig. Hosoda's stab at One Piece is equally arresting. Animation is wild and playful, adeptly shifting between minimalist naturalism and impossible physiology fights. Rather than discard genre mechanics and expectation, Hosoda accentuates them, transforming them from threat accelerates into tense psychological alarm. Shonen Jump movie tradition dictates that friends must be imperilled to bring out the best in the hero, here pals are not merely roughed up, they are lost in situations that bring out the worst in them, fraying long-standing loyalties and links.

On an adventure time out, a close-knit pirate crew journey to Festival Island, expecting recuperation. Instead they find an overripe monument to 19th century European architecture, staffed by a cultish crew of sycophants and their leader Baron Omatsuri. Before allowing the visiting pirates to sample the amenities, the Baron has the crew engage in frivolous competitions that quickly mutate from simplistic whimsy into acute punishment. The visiting crew are repeatedly allocated insufficient resources, whilst the ageing home team are gifted all manner of expensive hyper-technology.

Reading the hirsute Baron as a Miyazaki analog, you find a lonely old man clinging to extensions of his past. Rather than allow fresh new blood to invigorate his island, the Baron would instead prefer to destroy the visitors, wringing pleasure out of their discomfort. The island tempts the best of the best to enquire, then bowdlerises them, telling them they aren't up to muster. Baron clings fiercely to his own crew, pouring resource onto them so that they may ruin any competition. Baron protects what is left of his fellows, quite willing to tempt his own destruction in doing so. There's even an empty headed child wandering the island, made blind to his flaws and among the dearest to Baron. Are we to read him as Goro Miyazaki, the ill-equipped heir apparent to the Ghibli empire? With this in mind, it would be easy to take Secret Island as a one-note revenge piece, with Hosoda coming to bury his former employers, but the film is keenly balanced on a sense of understanding for the tormentors. Baron Omatsuri isn't evil. He's just stranded.