Yeah, it's one of those foreign films that had to wait a year for the Academy to notice. I made a point to see it before the Oscars for the sake of knowing as many Best Animated Feature nominees as possible, tho I knew from the outset it wouldn't win. The last non-CG winner came out in 2005, and TTotPK sports a watercolor look with a dash of charcoal.
I had thought that director/writer Isao Takahata, being older than Hayao Miyazaki, had retired. He has made few movies in the last 15 years, none of them well known in my circles. His works tend to be more quintessentially Japanese than Miyazaki's, as evidenced by Disney's embarrassing attempt to redub Pom Poko for an American audience. But I'll give him credit for variety: The tragedy Grave of the Fireflies and comic-in-motion My Neighbors the Yamadas could hardly have differed more. TTotPK, based on a Japanese folktale, makes a worthy addition to his legacy.
The story begins with a bamboo cutter finding a miniature living girl, decked out like a princess, inside a glowing stalk. When he passes her to his wife, the girl rapidly turns into a normal-size baby, which they take as a sign of mutual adoption. The baby learns and grows extraordinarily fast, earning the nickname "Little Bamboo" among backwoods boys. Her presence appears to enhance other things in nature, and she and the neighbors, especially older boy Sutemaru, enjoy each other's company.
But as the cutter finds more luxuries in glowing stalks, he becomes convinced that (Buddhist?) heaven wants his tomboyish daughter to leave the woods forever and live as a traditional princess. His will prevails against her protests, and his wife isn't crazy about it either. For most of the rest of the film, there are no signs of fantasy; it's just driving home half the point of The Prince and the Pauper: Living as royalty isn't all it's cracked up to be. Many customs for Japanese noblewomen defy comfort and, in the renamed Kaguya's opinion, reason. The expectation of picking a groom from a small pool of elite suitors is just icing on the toxic cake. In the end, she unwittingly prays for a rescue -- and gets plenty of time before the rescue to wish she hadn't, because the forces of heaven will leave her with only the vaguest memories of her time on Earth.
This telling leaves me to wonder what heaven really wanted. In most legends of entities coming down to Earth, they serve a purpose for changing things on Earth. Kaguya helps only in little ways and sometimes hinders in bigger ways. If they sent her for long-term happiness or education, they failed big time. Maybe the filmmakers fully intend to keep heaven mysterious, out of deference to how little humans understand.
The otherwise simple story is rated PG in the U.S., but I wouldn't be surprised if Japan gave it the equivalent of a G. Let's just say that not all cultures have a big nudity taboo in non-racy contexts, perhaps especially in a 10th-century setting. The art style isn't big on details anyway. The only other element that may have pushed up the rating is when Kaguya sits looking subdued, her mother whispers to her father, and he declares Kaguya adult enough for marriage. Good luck explaining that to a little kid.
One downside to the artwork is that we basically have to take the characters' word for it that Kaguya looks gorgeous. No moment really strikes me as visually captivating like in The Song of the Sea. But the music, not least Kaguya's koto performance, is consistently pretty to my ears.
My parents probably chose right in rejecting my offer to wait and watch with them. If they didn't lose interest within the 137 minutes, they'd find it a bit troubling. Nevertheless, I've decided I like it overall. It may not be the classic that GotF has proven to be, but it wouldn't make a bad final note for Takahata's career.
No comments:
Post a Comment