Existing In Between

            Princess Mononoke is often seen as a film that is very anti-industrial and concerned with the preservation of nature. While these environmental viewings are valid and important, the characters, their conflicts, and the resolution cannot be contained to that single theme. This movie endeavors to display a more complex relationship with nature than singularly environmental reading offers. It is a film that is ultimately about existing in between. I will discuss the idea of being in between in both the context of the protagonist Ashitaka’s position between humans and nature, as displayed in Miyazaki’s fantasy masterpiece. This position is best seen in the characters and their relationships, starting first with the opposing sides. The hero of the human side is the Lady Eboshi. She is the leader of Irontown, an industrial people who strip away the forest to mine for iron. The opposition of Irontown are the god and spirits of the forest, mighty creatures who are remnants from ancient times. Chief among them is the wolf god Moro, and her three children. One of these children is a human though, adopted by Moro when she was abandoned by her parents. This child is San, who as Moro describes is neither human nor wolf. San fights fiercely for the forest and hates humans. This sentiment changes through the course of the movie as Ashitaka appears, a figure in between these two diametrically opposed forces, and pulls both sides inwards. Ashitaka comes to Irontown in search of the answer to a mysterious curse upon him, but rather cures the curse upon the land.

The Lady Eboshi is strong, confident, and protective of her people. She has more courage than any man in this feudally inspired setting. She is intelligent, cunning, and brought Irontown to prominence. Furthermore, she has a compassion that most didn’t in this world. After Ashitaka heroically returns a pair of Irontown workers who had been hurt on the road back to Irontown in an attack carried out by Moro, Lady Eboshi invites her back into her private garden. Here Ashitaka learns that Lady Eboshi took in and cared for lepers who had been abandoned by the world. Lady Eboshi is one the strongest and most complete female characters in one of Miyazaki’s movies, which do not lack for strong female characters. Casting Lady Eboshi as a villain is too simple. While her goals oppose that of San’s and Ashitaka’s, they are not necessarily evil.

While perhaps Lady Eboshi is not evil, she is dangerous. Her strength and ability mean that her will can be indomitable. This means trouble for the spirits of the forest and San. San is portrayed as very wolf-like to begin with, a ferocious combatant of Irontown and its people. Slowly she becomes more human as she interacts with Ashitaka. The opposition of the two sides is best seen when San attempts to assassinate Lady Eboshi. San raids Irontown, scaling its palisades and running along the rooftops. When her and Lady Eboshi finally clash, the battle is savage and quick. Ashitaka makes his way into the battle, with slow and purposeful movements. He immediately comes between them holds them apart. This shot is the heart of the story. San and Lady Eboshi stand in front of each other, hating the other with complete venom, and Ashitaka stands between them, trying to stop the violence. The magic of Ashitaka’s curse swirls around him, as he shouts to the townspeople, crying for peace. The framing of the image perfectly represent Ashitaka’s position in the story. He is the man in between the two sides who will bring them together.

Ashitaka’s curse visually represents violence through the film. The purple taint spreads across his body, and grows stronger when he fights. When he stands between Lady Eboshi and San, it is at its visual greatest. The original purpose that brought him to Irontown was seeking a cure for the curse. This purpose becomes secondary as he learns of the conflict between the forest and Irontown. Throughout the whole movie, Ashitaka does not take a side. Many times he espouses that his entire goal is to stop the conflict. This is seen in how the movie ends. At first appearance San and Lady Eboshi seem as if the other would need to die in order for there to be an end. It feels destined that one must die, and yet, Ashitaka prevents this from happening. In this way, Ashitaka exists in between. He embodies a role of duality, not fighting for any side, but trying to stop the conflict. In this way Miyazaki creates a story that is not surmised by a purely environmental reading. It offers a more complex look at the conflict between industrial humanity and the environment, that seeks to stop violence between the two rather than justify one side.

The Curse of Dreams

Hayao Miyazaki’s final film The Wind Rises presents a story of dreams. It is in some ways his most grounded story. It is a biographical piece that imagines the life of Jiro Horikoshi with many fictional embellishments. It does not seek to tell his story, but rather tell a story of dreams, their power and their curse. The movie begins with a quote from the French poet Paul Valery that reads: “The wind is rising! We must try to live”.  The movie goes on to explore how dream affect the way we live our lives. In this movie they are very powerful forces that Miyazaki often lets visually seep into the waking world. The movie also asks the question of what it means to try to live, a problem that becomes immediate to Jiro later in his life. In his childhood though, at the beginning of the movie, Jiro is dreaming.

The first sequence of the movie is a dream. A plane, appearing more bird like than mechanical, flies Jiro across a beautiful sky. Suddenly, cruel and animate looking bombs appear as the clouds part. Jiro looks to stop them from hitting below, but sees them with a blurred double vision. This first dream sequence is immediately used to show to the audience, and Jiro, that his poor eyesight will forever stop him from being a pilot. This is important because it shows how Jiro’s dreams are connected to the real world. The dreams are not an escape from his problems, but rather offer insight that might not be obtainable without the dreams. The young Jiro’s dreams are very revealing of his character and also very powerful. In a scene where he and his younger sister, Kayo, sit on the roof, Jiro is unable to see the stars the same way his sister can. Instead though, an amazing dream appears to him. The fantastic colors used to depict the planes as they rush across the sky rival any stars that he might see. His dream here gives him wonder that he might not have had without them. In this dream the figure of Count Caproni appears. He is an Italian aeronautical engineer that appears to Jiro many times throughout the movie, and according to him, shares this dream. Later on, Caproni would call their shared dream, The Kingdom of Dreams, a place that proves immensely important to Jiro. During this first encounter, Caproni says to Jiro: “Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.” This is the driving force of the story, as Jiro embarks on a life that seeks to turn the airplanes of his dreams into a reality.

Jiro doesn’t just see airplanes in his dreams at night, he sees them everywhere. They appear in the sky at random moments. When eating lunch, he picks a fish bone out of his mackerel and wonders how its structure might be applicable to a plane part. Jiro sees, and is open to, inspiration in every aspect of his life. Miyazaki brilliantly works dreamy images of planes into small moments, letting the dreams seep into the real. The character of Honjo, Jiro’s friend, offers a good contrast to this. Honjo is a grounded man, obsessed with how Japanes technology seems to be decades behind other nations. Jiro is equally obsessed though. That appears to be something shared between him and every plane designer. Jiro’s obsession is with making a beautiful plane. This goal drives him, and it is shown several times, when Caproni appears and asks Jiro “Is the wind still rising?”. Jiro always replies affirmatively and moves forward towards his goals.

Dreams aren’t just used to show Jiro’s hope and aspirations though. They are also used to warn and remind him. Jiro and Honjo travel to Germany at the bequest of their employer to study German flight technology. While they are there Jiro has a dream, one that envisions a large Japanese bomber plane burning up and crashing to the ground. This vision offers him a sight into what won’t work, guiding his path once again. Jiro never wanted to build bomber planes to begin with though, so this dream doesn’t impact him as much. However a later dream, that shows the failure of his own plane’s design is much more relevant. It is later implied that this failure actually did happen to one of his designs, meaning that the dream haunts him with problems of the past. In this way the dreams really push him to innovate.

After the failing of his prototype, Jiro was sent to a mountain retreat for some rest before tackling the design again. It is here that he runs into Naoko, a girl he had helped earlier in the movie and his future wife. The character of Naoko presents a grounding element to Jiro’s ambitious and dreamy personality. She is sick with tuberculosis which greatly impacts Jiro’s life. It is a cold hard truth that her lifetime is limited, something that the couple cannot ignore. No amount of dream driven inspiration can solve this. His love for her is real and it keeps him tied to the world outside of his work. Still, his relationship to her can only be described as neglectful. While at first she had decided to try and get better at a facility far removed from Jiro, the two decided that they wanted to be closer to each other while she still lived. But even when she is living in the same house as him, they spent the majority of the day away from each other. Jiro worked all day, and often worked at home as he pushed to design the famous A6M Zero plane. While their commitment to each other can’t be questioned, the reality of Jiro’s work was responsible for a distance between them. Eventually, Naoko decides to leave the house, claiming that she would go away to try and recover once again. This was on the day that Jiro’s prototype was being tested. She stayed just long enough for him to finish his plane. As the test flight is occurring, and Jiro is witnessing the fruition of all of his dreams the wind stops. Everyone else in the scene is celebrating, and the test pilot is screaming by at an astounding speed. Jiro isn’t even looking at the plane. He looks off towards the distance and the camera does a slow pan to follow his gaze. It passes over a wind kite, which shows that the wind has stopped. Jiro does not watch the success of his dreams, instead he stares towards the distance into which Naoko is going.

The fate of Naoko is left unknown. The movie ends in The Kingdom of Dreams. Jiro is talking to Caproni, when Naoko appears and tells him “You must live” and then fades away. The ending feels unsatisfactory. The resolution of the A6M Zero being designed is sour when mixed with Naoko’s leaving and Jiro’s sudden uncaring. In the Kingdom of Dreams, Caproni calls airplanes “cursed dreams”. Perhaps this curse extends to all dreams. They drove Jiro to a wonderful success, the creation of a truly beautiful plane. But, the plane was used for war and death. But, in his mission he lost the time that he could have had with Naoko. Perhaps, this is the message Miyazki wishes to tell after his career. That our dreams and passion can lead us to great things, but it’s important to make sure that those are the things you truly want.

A Purpose for Fantasy

My Neighbor Totoro is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s earlier animated works. The atmosphere and tone of the movie are similar to other works around the time like Kiki’s Delivery Service. Notably though, it is set in a much less fantastic world than his previous major works. It is a cult favorite to followers of the director, and one of his first really big hits. At first glance, the movie holds a feeling of cheerfulness that is reminiscent of early childhood. This matches the ages of the main characters, Satsuki and Mei, who have recently moved to a house in the countryside with their father, Tatsuo. While the music and bright palette of the movie give an adolescent mood to My Neighbor Totoro, mature themes run throughout the story. Through the two young girls exploration of their new house and the surrounding area, Miyazaki examines the relationship between childish imagination and emotional pains.

The story begins with an overflowing truck. This blue truck bumbles its way along the road, burdened with a mountain of things strapped to its bed. Tatsuo Kusakabe is moving to the countryside with his two daughters. We are never explicitly given a reason for this move, but later we may intuit one. The house that they arrive to is run down. The wood is rotting, dust covers every inch, and it is generally in disarray. In these early house scenes, the first supernatural element is introduced. Mei and Satsuki open a door to find a completely black room. The blackness vanished in a flurry of movement. Mei and Satsuki come across this instance of vanishing blackness several times throughout the house. It is explained to them as soot gremlins. Creatures that live in old houses and watch over them. This explanation is offered to them twice, first by their father, and then by their elderly neighbor simply named Granny. Granny claims that “I used to be able to see them when I was your age”, and lets them know that they are friendly creatures. This first instance of supernatural is indicative of each fantastic thing in the movie. It comes from a need of the children. In this instance the girls, especially Mei, are depicted as nervous and frightened about certain aspects of the house. The idea of a haunted house is enough to scare any child. So it is easy to create a friendly little creature to explain darting movements seen out of the corner of an eye. This is not to say that the creatures aren’t real. Throughout the movie there is no conclusive evidence that the fantastic creatures are meant to be understood as purely a part of the children’s imagination or not. That argument doesn’t feel pertinent to the movie either, and this essay won’t look to address it. Rather, this essay will seek to show how the fantasy of the children is used to deal with the needs of their lives.

Beneath the Charm

My Neighbor Totoro is known for being adorable. The fuzzy and lovable creature that Mei will discover is perhaps the most fitting thing ever imagined for a plushy toy. Cuteness seeps from the screen, as Mei and Satsuki’s antics and the upbeat music force smiles out of rocks. Like many of Miyazaki’s films though, there is a very real conflict at the heart of the story. This is no less true in My Neighbor Totoro, and when contrasted with the jubilant feeling of the art, it feels even more somber than usual. When the viewer learns that Mei and Satsuki’s Mom is in the hospital, the story takes a serious turn. The movie doesn’t suddenly become a drama focused on her illness, but her sickness and its impact become more and more obvious as time goes on. There are several clues that show that the situation of the children isn’t as happy as the cult ivated atmosphere would have you believe. First, the nature of the house suddenly becomes suspect. Questions about why they have moved become more pressing. Now, it is possible that they moved to the countryside to be closer to the hospital that their mother is residing in. But, as Granny explains later, it is a four hour walk to the hospital, so it’s not exactly close. Furthermore, the house they move into is extremely dilapidated. These both indicate that their financial situation might be strained by the expenses of a lengthy stay in a hospital. Regardless of whether their finances are stressed, Tatsuo’s time is definitely overloaded. This subtle hints of these burdens are expertly shown in a shot of Tatsuo and Mei. The shot takes place on a morning when Tatsuo overslept. Because he woke up late, he wasn’t able to make lunch for Satsuki who is going off to school. Satsuki has already made lunch for herself and the rest of the family though. Mei, who is too young for school, is left with her father while Satsuki takes off. Miyazaki establishes a shot of Tatsuo’s study in the house. The room is cluttered with an obscene amount of books and paper. Tatsuo leans over a desk, focused on what he is writing. The back wall of the room is open and Mei plays in the grass just outside. The frame of the shot does not change for a long time. While Tatsuo is bent over his desk, the frame holds tight and he never changes places. Meanwhile, Mei dips in and out of the frame, running and playing, shouting to her dad, and displaying the energy of youth. This shot displays the lacking parent figure in the daughter’s life. While Mei looks to explore and run outside of the frame, her father is petrified by his work. These subtle details show the reality of their lives. Many small moments are impacted by their sick mother. These realities are unavoidable, and issues that the children must deal with.

It is exactly these real problems that lead to the fantastic in this movie. Immediately after the previous scene, Mei goes on an adventure around the house that leads her to discovering Totoro. In this way, the fantastic answers the needs that the real imposes onto the children. When her father must work, Mei is entertained by chasing fantastic creatures around the house and in the backyard. Totoro’s second appearance only comes when Mei and Satsuki are missing their father. As they wait in the rain at a bus stop for Tatsuo, who has missed a connection on his commute from work, Totoro appears again. He delights the girls who have grown tired, and in this ways supports them while there father is gone. Totoro’s final appearance comes at the climax of the movie, when Mei has disappeared after running off to try and see her mother at the hospital. Totoro appears again to help Satsuki find Mei. Here, the ambiguity of Totoro’s actually existence is preeminent. While nobody except for Satsuki and Mei have seen it, Totoro has the real world impact of helping Satsuki find Mei. Regardless of how real he is, the pattern of the fantastic arriving to fill the needs of the real, especially in situations where the children have no parents, is definitive. Miyazaki’s work shows how childhood imagination helps us cope with very real and mature problems. It also does not judge this way of dealing with the problems. Mei and Satsuki are not harmed by this imagination; rather they are supported by it. My Neighbor Totoro show how children are sometimes faced with very difficult problems and yet manage to find happiness in their situation, with the help of the fantastic.