Berserk: Egg of the King

ベルセルク覇王の卵 Toshiyuki Kubooka, 2012

ReelAnime 4/4

I was saving Berserk for last. Right off the bat, I had a gut feeling it would be the one I would enjoy the least. It just looked like a mindless medieval battle movie adapted from a mindless medieval battle manga/anime. It seems to me like Berserk has never really been as popular as it is in Japan, I had never really heard of it, except through the music of Susumu Hirasawa, who provided soundtracks for the anime series (his sounds are amazing and body of work staggering, check him out), and I rarely get into anime series anyway because they usually tend to drag on a bit for me. At least this Berserk movie would be bearable because they will condense it into film length and drop all the filler right?

The film is set an unspecified kingdom/land, but a blind man could see the medieval Europe inspiration. From the get go then, we have knights in shining armour on horseback, battling with swords - all the while yelling and carrying on in Japanese like it’s nobody's business. But this is no off putting anachronism; in fact, it’s kind of fascinatingly that this works. The question of believability never really enters into the equation and we are swept up into this bizarre east-meets-west alternate history. The hero of our tale is a swaggering warrior named Guts. I thought for a while that this was a joke, but no, his name is actually GUTS. He is an arrogant brawn over brains style fighter with a sword quite literally as long as he is tall (paging Dr. Freud…?). Guts appears to be working for some kind of clan/guild, but doesn’t really seem to have any strong allegiances. After his gratuitous display of power is spotted by some skilled warriors during a siege upon an enemy castle, Guts is ambushed, bested in battle and persuaded to join their crew. The leader of this group is called Griffin, a mysterious “dude looks like a lady” warrior with an equally mysterious egg necklace. It is from this McGuffin that our film takes its name and not much else.

I didn’t really understand just what all these warriors are actually doing. They are battling each other, but the reasons why are unclear. I thought maybe Griffin and his gang were a bunch of bandits, fighting the powers that be, but this theory was quickly dashed with a scene in which Griffin meets with the king and cracks onto his incredibly clichéd “I detest violence” princess daughter. From what I gather though, Griffin ropes Guts into his team so as to remove him as an obstacle from his quest to seize the throne. Over time, Guts is played by his friend, as he begins to learn of Griffin’s true nature. The film only runs for about an hour and twenty minutes, so just when the plot started not only thickening but taking some twists and turns, and I really found myself getting interested in the story, it was over! By that stage I was quite surprised at myself to think that I would have happily sat through another hour and a half of this blood and swords bonanza. Gutted. 

I think this fast and furious duration is what detracted from the film a little. It almost felt like it wasn’t intended for the cinema. The aforementioned Susumu Hirasawa only gets a few minutes of opening credits theme song, and the cheesy “tune in next time” style trailer add to make this film more of a glorified TV episode. Of course, the battle scenes won’t have the same effect on the small screen, but 80 minutes? At least give me a double bill! Some of the animation also didn’t work for me. The film makes extensive use of CGI animation, and it really sticks out like a sore thumb. Many of the figures clunk around the screen like bobble-headed polygons from a 90s computer game cut-scene. It also feels like the CGI director and the drawn-animation director went for a “you do one scene, I’ll do the next” approach. The difference between the two is striking, giving the film a completely uneven visual feel.  

I’ll be honest; the film contains a lot of macho-bullshit. Women are relegated to supporting roles (classic dark ages, I guess), there is plenty of buckets-of-blood gore and painfully contrived attempts at human emotion. All this is layered with a thick coating of swaggering badassery, thanks mainly to Guts. I wanted more of the lone female warrior whose name escapes me, (and I’m not referring to her jarringly awkward and wholly unnecessary nude scene) she was definitely the most interesting character, maybe we‘ll be seeing her later. The film takes itself quite seriously, like it’s trying to be an animated Game of Thrones or something. But then, maybe it is more self aware than I’m giving it credit for. I mean, Japanese voice actors pronouncing names like Charlotte and Julius is pretty hilarious. I would have liked to have seen a bit more mystical junk though. Dragons, spells, that sort of thing. There was only really one battle with an evil monster, and it was a great scene. I hope that director Toshiyuki Kubooka has more in store for the sequels.

As I said, by the end of Berserk, I really was quite involved in the story. I was not expecting this at all, thinking it would be just a silly exercise in violence aimed at teenage boys. Of course, that’s exactly what it is… but the cliff-hanger that ended this movie is killing me, and I genuinely want to know what happens next! Sure, it’s mindless entertainment, and the characters and their animation have their weak spots, but it’s surprisingly well written. If the giant Warner Brothers logo that preceded the film is anything to go by, we can probably expect to see the rest of these movies in the west. And of course, as Madman was responsible for bringing us ReelAnime, they will no doubt do their damndest to bring them to Australia.

And so ends a bloody ripper ReelAnime, 4 great little movies direct from Japan. Melbournites make sure you catch WolfChildren; its stay has been extended at Cinema Nova, (where I just may see it for a third time, it’s that good) and where From up on Poppy Hill will be rejoining it later in the year.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices

星を追う子ども Makoto Shinkai, 2011
ReelAnime 3/4
 

So we have reached the second half of Madman's ReelAnime 2012. While I did know the first two directors and their work, the remaining two are pretty much completely new to me. It seems Makoto Shinkai is a director who has been making works quite regularly, I have heard of his interestingly titled film 5 Centimetres Per Second, but apart from that, I really don't know anything about him, and haven't seen any of his work available on DVD etc. in Australia as yet.

The film is about a young girl named Asuna, who lives in a picturesque little town near the mountains. Her mother works long shifts at a hospital, so Asuna pretty much looks after herself, and doesn't really have any friends. To pass the time, she sits upon the mountains listening to her makeshift radio that is powered by a crystal shard her deceased father left her. One day when walking home from school, Asuna encounters a terrifying monster, and is saved by a mysterious young boy named Shun, who disappears just as suddenly as he arrives. Determined to find her friend, Asuna learns of and seeks out the legendary world called Agartha, which lies below our earth. Even just from writing this short synopsis, it has made me realise how clumsily the story unfolds. The aforementioned monster appears out of nowhere, Shun, who we assume will be an important role in the story is quickly killed off, and Asuna sets out on an adventure with someone she hardly knows. Her substitute teacher/Agartha expert named Morisaki, the only character who possesses any true (if cliched) motivation for finding Agartha. He plays the roles of substitute teacher, academic, mourning widower and also member of an evil corporate organisation Arch Angel, who intend to find a gateway into Agartha. Asuna blindly follows him through the mysterious underworld, and we never really know why. Is it to find her dead father? Does she still believe Shun, who she knew for less than twenty-four hours, is alive? Story possibilities are introduced then discarded quickly, and much remains unexplained. The evil Arch Angel threat is conveyed as a powerful, evil force, yet is very quickly forgotten about as soon as Asuna and Morisaki enter Agartha, sealing the baddies on the outside and allowing our story to resume its aimless meandering, in an equally horizon-less underworld.

The main problem here is in the characterisation. Asuna is a completely boring cardboard cut-out of a character. She has no heroic personality traits, her voice is annoyingly cute and harmless, and she embarks on an adventure seemingly for no reason other than she has nothing better to do. The obligatory anime young-love story between the two young leads is set up, but hardly even touched upon, continuing Shinkai's trend of throwing out story arcs as he pleases. Every single character is completely dwarfed by the epic ambition of Shinkai's film. It's obvious he has spent most of his time developing and planning the world of Agartha, which could be seen as the film's true main character. Yet even this feels underdone. The characters wander continuosly through a vast and beautifully rendered land filled with... not much. It felt very much to me like a video game, where you are forced to traverse a massive overworld in order to reach places of interest like towns or dungeons. The "dual world" concept, along with certain beasts whose weaknesses are water and light also adds strongly to these video game comparisons. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that this film would be much more successful as a video game. I wonder if Shinkai ever played the Super Nintendo game Terranigma, a high concept role playing game dealing with similar parallel world ideas... Children Who Chase Lost Voices is an adventure story, and while it is beautiful to look at, with it's grand visuals realised wonderfully on the big screen, it's never as exciting as it could be. Links to ancient civilizations and influence from fantasy/adventure films like Indiana Jones or Journey to the Centre of the Earth seem quite clear, but Shinkai attempts a difficult balancing act with a large number of philosophical concepts and themes, and as a result, drops some and neglects others while misplacing the sense of wonder and discovery intrinsic to successful adventure stories.

Visually, the film is probably the most vibrant I've seen at ReelAnime so far. The film has a glowing, shiny, look, which lends itself perfectly to the cosmic, alternate world designs, with an eternal twilight enveloping every scene. The attention to detail is incredible. But the fact that the visuals are the film's main success just makes me think of the work as as a meal that looks really delicious, but by the end of it, you're still hungry. Shinkai's designs of the gods/guardians who watch over Agartha are also very derivative. I feel as though I've seen them all before in Miyazaki films, which I find annoying mainly for the reason that I end up mentioning Miyazaki every time I try and talk about non-Miyazaki anime. But when you're blatantly ripping stuff off/taking cues from him, its unavoidable. One scene with a young banished warrior cutting his hair and leaving his village on horseback is lifted almost shot for shot from Princess Mononoke. And the Izuko, evil undead monsters that survive only in the shadows are like something straight out of the Zelda games.

For me the film never reaches its full potential. It is an underdone and uneven affair, with some of the most uninvolving characters I've seen in a while. It really is a film of surfaces, stunning surfaces, but surfaces nonetheless. Shinkai sets up an exciting concept, the underworld of Agartha and the intrusion of the "top-siders" and delivers an average adventure, one that it is constantly trying to catch up with the visuals, which remain miles ahead of any other element of the film. In the end we are left with characters who aren't engaging, and a film too under-developed to be wholly satisfying, and an awful end credits theme-song.

Wolf Children

おおかみこどもの雨と雪 Mamoru Hosoda, 2012
Reel Anime 2/4

Mamoru Hosoda is the most exciting director currently working in animation. His two previous films were incredible, and have proven his ability to merge impeccable visuals with creative concepts while still being entertaining. His anime adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt through Time managed to breathe new life into a classic Japanese story that has been adapted countless times since the 60s, while his previous film Summer Wars, which was shown at ReelAnime 2010, is a modern masterpiece, overflowing with colourful and creative ideas. Earlier in the year I was doing some internet trawling, trying to find out if he would making a new movie anytime soon. I stumbled upon a Japanese “coming soon” style page for his next feature Wolf Children. Ever since then I have been eagerly awaiting it. And thanks to the good ol’ folks at Madman, we haven’t had to wait too long, bringing it to Australia a couple of months after its July premiere in Japan.

Hosoda’s works so far present characters and situations that are firmly grounded in reality, until extraneous circumstances see the arrival of strong fantasy elements. The Girl Who Leapt through Time deals with the use of time travel for a young girl living in contemporary Japan, while Summer Wars presents the internet as an alternate reality, the vastness of which threatens to eclipse the real world. Wolf Children is similar in that it remains very much a film set in the now, but the fantasy elements succeed in creating a world in a magic realism style. Hana is a young woman studying at university. Living alone, she works part time at a dry cleaner’s to support herself. One day she notices a mysterious man in her class who seems quite reluctant to engage in social interaction. Over time she pursues him and they fall in love. One night, the man (he is not given a name) reveals to Hana his secret, he is actually a wolf man. Not a savage, howling, human killing werewolf, just a man who happens to have the ability to transform into a wolf. This revelation does not alter Hana’s feelings, and they remain together, and soon Hana becomes pregnant. After their two children, Ame and Yuki (Japanese for rain and snow, given the weather that accompanied their birth) are born; things take a tragic turn when the wolf man is found dead in a river. Left to raise two young wolf children on her own, the devastated Hana decides they will move to the countryside for a new start.

The first small section of the film is dedicated to Hana and the wolf man, and plays out like a fairy tale love story, until their time together is cut short and the film’s focus widens to explore the children growing up. While watching, I was interested to see just how many of these children’s years Hosoda would track. Ame and Yuki as tiny little kids just may be the most adorable thing I have ever seen in a film. They run around their tiny city apartment, chewing books and table legs, transforming from child to wolf to somewhere in between at will. Hana’s frustration and confusion at these two unique children is played both for laughs and tears. Quick jokes such as Hana puzzling over whether to take a sick Yuki to a vet or a doctor are contrasted with prolonged, overarching themes of family, with Hana constantly giving of herself to protect the children she knows society will never understand or accept. When the setting changes from the city to the country, the film opens up in environment and character development, Yuki soon begins school, while Ame begins to explore the woods that surround their house, discovering his wolf side. The development of these children is beautifully realised. Their changes of heart and personality as they go though life and encounter new people, along with their secret wolf nature is not in the least bit contrived. Of course, the film follows Hana just as much as her children. Her journey from city living Uni student to rural farmer mother of two serves as the foundation from which Ame and Yuki’s stories flourish. There are a few melodramatic encounters, and even Hosoda can’t resist a few howling from mountaintop scenes, but really, all his works have an undercurrent of sentimentality. Interestingly, looking at The Girl Who Leapt through Time to Wolf Children, each of Hosoda’s works is set increasingly further from the city, seemingly favouring an agricultural lifestyle over the alienation of the urban environment.

Hosoda studied oil painting at university, which is no doubt the reason why all of his works are imbued with his own distinctive visual style. The country setting of Wolf Children, along with its surrounding forest and the changing of the seasons, allows Hosoda and his team to go for broke visually, as they ride opportunities to create moments of animated bliss. The arrival of winter is a beautiful and spectacular segment, approaching Fantasia-style levels of cinematic transcendence, while the film’s visuals as a whole is enough to make a glass eye weep. Fluid movement is animated masterfully, Ame and Yuki change from human to wolf in a matter of seconds or small physical movements, conveyed through various visual representations of human-animal hybrid, much like the Tanuki in Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko. Computer animation is also made use of in a few scenes, mostly for point of view shots of the wolf children bounding through the forest, but these are included seamlessly, adding new, dynamic visual possibilities and doesn’t create a jarring distinction with the more traditional animation style visuals at all.

The fact that Hosoda’s films, for me anyway, give an overwhelming sense of awe not present in the majority of the more mass produced style Anime, or even recent Studio Ghibli films is enough to make me hail him as “The new Miyazaki”. But that might be a bit unfair, given they do have their differences. Hosoda doesn’t get as preachy or environmental as Miyazaki sometimes can, and where Miyazaki laments the soullessness of contemporary life, escaping into more surreal or historical places, Hosoda seems much more comfortable or in harmony with it. Interestingly, Hosoda was originally attached to direct Howl’s Moving Castle, but left the project early on, leaving us to torture ourselves imagining how he may have treated that material. Maybe if Hosoda (and indeed others, as I’ve heard Makoto Shinkai’s Children Who Chase Lost Voices, also screening at ReelAnime, is a strong Ghibli de-throning contender) continues making such amazing work as Wolf Children, Ghibli will stop resting on their laurels and Miyazaki will come out of retirement.

It's hard to talk coherently about a movie that so immediately grabs you, I really feel as though I haven't said much at all in this post and have failed to accurately convey just why I loved Wolf Children so. But all I want to do is see it again. This film is like a breath of fresh air, and that makes it a hat-trick for Mamoru Hosoda: Three incredible movies in a row. Funny, moving and visually mind-blowing: I was grinning like a maniac from start to finish. The characters are just so well developed and the story so involving. Movies like this are the reason I go to the movies, and animation like this is the reason I love animation. I loved every minute of it, and while I still think Sumer Wars might be Hosoda’s best to date, Wolf Children is similarly deserving of the title “Masterpiece”. Possibly the best movie I’ve seen all year; Animation or otherwise.

From Up On Poppy Hill

コクリコ坂から Goro Miyazaki, 2011
Reel Anime 1/4
 

Madman's ReelAnime 2012 has kicked off around Australia, showcasing four new anime films direct from Japan. ReelAnime doesn't happen every year, I think the last time was 2010, so when it comes around it's pretty exciting, especially with a line up that looks as good as this year's. The two standout films are most definitely going to be the new Studio Ghibli film From Up On Poppy Hill directed by Goro Miyazaki, and Wolf Children, the new work by Mamoru Hosoda, a director whose work has succeeded in surpassing anything Ghibli has done since Howl's Moving Caslte. My guess is that From Up On Poppy Hill will remain the major audience draw-card however, simply for the fact that it is a Studio Ghibli Film. This hypothesis was proven last night when I saw it at Cinema Nova, where the theatre was almost completely full with both adults and children.

This film had a bit riding on it for me. There are two reasons for this: One, the last Ghibli movie Arriety was not amazing. It was nice, but quite underwhelming. Two, the last Goro Miyazaki film Tales From Earthsea, which was also his directorial debut, is almost universally considered to be the worst Ghibli movie yet made. I didn't think it was an absolute failure, but like Arriety, there was just a huge lack of Ghibli magic. It must be difficult for Goro being the son of one the greatest directors of all time, animation or otherwise, Hayao Miyazaki. It's an enormous shadow to live in, but the good news is that From Up On Poppy Hill is a fairly good sign that Goro is finding his way as a director, and also that Studio Ghibli is still an important force in the animation world.

The film is set in Yokohama 1963. The 60s was a period of rapid economic development for Japan, but also one of great change and confusion following war and American occupation. The film captures this quite perfectly in that there are many instances where the film doesn't feel very Japanese at all. The presence of Coca-Cola and television, along with characters breaking from traditional roles (one is a painter, one travels abroad for study) serve to create a Japan at a crossroads. A time and place that I'm sure carries a great nostalgic power for Japanese people, one only has to look at the enormous success of the sickly sweet Always films, but for me, this was a place that seemed to exist outside of time or place, and all the more so because it was animated. I think this is what makes for the most successful aspect of Poppy Hill. 

Ghibli has produced a few coming of age stories set in modern day Japan, Whisper of The Heart and Only Yesterday, and Poppy Hill sticks to this pretty familiar formula, probably a bit too closely, actually. Umi is a teenage girl who lives in a boarding house on a hill with a bunch of women from all walks of life. Despite her age and school commitments, Umi looks cooks and cleans for all the residents and just generally runs the house, which is owned by her grandmother Keiko. At school, Umi becomes friends with a boy named Shun, who, along with his friends, are protesting the destruction of their style clubhouse. And so begins a story of young love and student politics. Unfortunately, the film is never surprising. We know how it will end and how the obstacles will be overcome, which is a shame, because the film's main plot twist deals with unexpectedly mature issues that are quite interesting given the historical context, but are hastily resolved without issue by the film's end.

Like most Japanese films set in the post-war era, Poppy Hill addresses the "Out with the old, in with the new" dictum that so propelled Japan into the modern era, and It's great to see this from a teenage student point of view. Teenagers don't know who they are or what they want to be as is, but throw them into a social environment still reeling from the effects of war while simultaneously hurtling into the future, the results are quite moving and sometimes hilarious. The school clubhouse stands as a strong if somewhat clichéd metaphor for the loss of history/tradition, but it's design is classic Ghibli. A dark, dusty building full of old junk, that is inhabited by exuberant youths with dreams of changing the world. Throughout the film, the students express a reverence for tradition and integrity that belies their age, while also keeping their sights fixed firmly on the future. In one small scene, the only two remaining members of the Archaeology club are driven to go out and recruit new members rather than sit around contemplating the loss of their clubhouse, exclaiming that they owe it to those who came before them. It seems that Goro shares his father's oft-included themes of loss of culture and also his penchant for female leads. The Kokuriko boarding house is occupied solely by modern young females, while Keiko, the lady of the house, is a kimono-clad symbol of an old Japan quickly fading.

The film's soundtrack was the thing I had the most issues with. Poppy Hill boasts an incredibly jumbled array of poorly executed musical styles, many of which are mismatched to the onscreen visuals. It ranges from plaintive piano music (a mainstay of Studio Ghibli and always done infinitely better by regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi) to Go-go style organ grooves to playful horn-driven jazz which accompanies the cleaning of the clubhouse, one of the rare moments that worked. Ghibli films usually include one or two beautiful vocal pieces that are inserted effortlessly into the film, often over the opening or closing credits, but Poppy Hill's vocal pieces felt quite underdone. Much more successful is the inclusion of the students singing what I'm guessing are nationalistic/school songs acapella to raise morale, and Kyu Sakamoto's pop song 上を向いて歩こう (I Shall Walk Looking Up) which is known in the west as "Sukiyaki" thanks to what was probably an unbelievably lazy/ignorant translation. This hugely popular song was released in the year the film is set, and adds the kind of era-specific detail the soundtrack seemed to be attempting to recreate, but ultimately failed at with its soulless rehashing of 60s music styles. The scenes in which "Sukiyaki" is included are the scenes which really soar, conveying the kind of magic Ghibli has become famous for. Unfortunately, Goro is not able to sustain this magic for the whole film in the way Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle do, but the mere fact that there is glimpses of it is enough to make me hopeful for his future works.

I had reasonably low expectations for Poppy Hill, and was pleasantly surprised. The story isn't anything amazingly original, and you can see the ending coming a mile off, but it is quite heartfelt. It doesn't approach anything daddy Miyazaki has done, apart from the visuals, which are absolutely beautiful, but that is something for which Ghibli can always be relied on. All in all, it is a good addition to the less fantasy oriented titles in the Ghibli library, and while he still has some way to go, it is a solid new effort from Goro Miyazaki.

Kanazawa Film Festival 2012

If the world ends this year, it won't be because of the whole "2012: End of Days" thing. It will have nothing to do with the Mayan calendar, the Aztecs, Egyptians or any other ancient mystical prophecies. It will be because of the 2012 Kanazawa Film Festival.

The program was released about a month ago, and it is pretty unbelievable. Last year's festival theme was Filmageddon, and showcased a formidable line up of horror, crime and war oriented films from all over the world. This year the theme is Eros. A new website (it's pink, of course) has been launched, and the line up is absolutely overflowing with erotica, in what promises to be the most outrageous and unashamed celebration of trash ever publicly held.

The website has split the films into specific categories/genres including but certainly not limited to "Horror Queen" "Way of Love" and "Abnormal" with Paul Verhoeven's big budget sleaze-fest Showgirls set for the free outdoor opening night screening (how is this even allowed??). The centrepiece of the program is definitely the Christina Lindberg retrospective. A cult figure of 1970s sexploitation cinema, it looks as though every film she starred in from that era will be included. From the erotic films of her Swedish homeland to the incredibly nasty Thriller: A Cruel Picture and also her brief foray into Japanese sexploitation cinema with Sex & Fury. Lindberg's naked figure circa 1970 is everywhere, adorning the official program, website, tickets AND T-shirts! But if that wasn't enough, she will also be visiting the festival as a guest! Wow.

Add to this Sadao Nakajima, a director known for his Yakuza films from the 60s and 70s, who will also be visiting, and you have a festival that Tarantino would absolutely lose his lunch over. Facebook updates showing local business owners clutching the program and offering recommendations are making it clear that the town is in a buzz of anticipation for the festival, which is really quite fascinating, given the relatively small size of Kanazawa versus the explicit content of the films scheduled for screening. It runs for one week from September 14 to 21. Unfortunately I will not be attending due to uni (the workload and the not having money thing), but it looks like it's going to be an absolute riot.

check out the website at http://www.eiganokai.com/event/filmfes2012/index.html
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