We can fly with our spirit
February 24, 2017 7:56 AM   Subscribe

Miyazaki Dreams of Flying by Zach Prewitt.

During an a pre-Oscars interview, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki confirmed that Hayao Miyazaki has come out of retirement and is now working on a new feature film with a tentatively projected release date of "before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics."
posted by zarq (30 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
When a master of the imaginary says “This time is for real,” I am immediately suspicious.
posted by ubiquity at 8:18 AM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


Let's hope this is a comparatively cheerful one. We were just thinking at my house that we'd watched (and re-watched) all the non-sad Ghibli stuff we could find and the political climate is such that we're just not doing the sad ones right now.
posted by Frowner at 8:22 AM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them.

(The Wind Rises is a really weird movie)
posted by Artw at 9:09 AM on February 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'll believe Miyazaki is retired when he is dead. Literally ever since I first discovered his stuff way back in the 1990's he's been continually "retiring" and "coming out of retirement" for "one last movie". A quick check of Wikipedia shows that he's "retired" six times so far.

My inner cynic wonders if this is just a way to get press for his latest movie. My more sympathetic interpretation is hat he really, truly, does keep planning to quit but then gets dragged in when he discovers a project he loves.

Either way, I'll believe he's retired when he's dead and cremated.
posted by sotonohito at 9:12 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]




Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them.

(The Wind Rises is a really weird movie)


It's not like his other films and it took me a little bit of getting used to but it's quickly become one of my favourite of his films. Miyazaki has never shied away from looking into the dark parts of humanity, but they're often filtered through a fantasy lens. With The Wind Rises, it just feels that much darker because of the reality of WWI and WWII.

That was a beautiful tribute. Thanks for sharing. I needed something nice like this at the start of my shift.
posted by Fizz at 9:17 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I fear for the Zen Pencils guy should Miyazaki ever get ahold of him.
posted by Artw at 9:18 AM on February 24, 2017


My more sympathetic interpretation is hat he really, truly, does keep planning to quit but then gets dragged in when he discovers a project he loves.

This most recent change of heart provides some proof of this. He had said he was retiring from feature film directing but would do short films and producer work, but apparently he got so interested in a short film he was working on for the Ghibli Museum that he decided to make it into a feature film.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:36 AM on February 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


Long after he's dead, Miyazaki is going to rise up out of his grave as the harbinger of the zombie apocalypse in order to make just one more movie.

And I won't even mind that there's a zombie eating my face while I'm watching it.
posted by Jeanne at 9:52 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]


All his airships are fascinating and beautiful, but I've had the feeling he has trouble or is not very interested in drawing birds. They often look chunky and awkward.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 10:06 AM on February 24, 2017


Miyazaki surely loves his machines, particularly the flying ones. The kind of details and most important, character he puts into them is incredible. Rosso's airplane is as important in the story as Rosso, Fio, Gina or Curtis, for instance. Very few people have created worlds as well as Miyazaki, and this care for details and character is part of it.
And I think that's what drives his retirements and returns. Sure, he can detach himself from all that, but then starts imagining the little details, the backstories, and... well, might as well make a new movie.


Also: the Zen Pencils guy has posted so. much. pseudoinspirational. crap. that flooded social media with half-baked feel-goody bullshit I'm guessing a fair part of the internet would be game to knee him in the groin while shouting "HATE THIS WOOOOHOOOOO".
posted by lmfsilva at 10:06 AM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


My impression of Miyazaki from interviews, profiles and documentaries is that he's devoted his life to his work as a filmmaker to such an extent that his life outside his work as a filmmaker is kind of lopsided, unfulfilling and borderline dysfunctional, so he keeps coming back to work because that is where his life lives.

He makes beautiful movies and I'm glad for them, but there is something a little bittersweet to me about that; especially since Ghibli as a studio have successfully managed to avoid being coopted by commercialization to the same extent as most media/entertainment/art companies.
posted by byanyothername at 10:09 AM on February 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


He's certainly going to get zero traction with a grumpy perfectionist auteur.
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM on February 24, 2017


Miyazaki shows his utter disgust at an animators creepy CG work right in front of him

Amazing!
[Miyazaki reacts poorly to the horrifying CGI]
Computer guy: This is just our experiment. We don't mean to do anything by showing it to the world.
Studio Ghibli producer: So, what is your goal?
Computer guy: Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do.
Miyazaki: ............
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:38 AM on February 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


I don't know if The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is still on Netflix but it's got some great Miyazaki moments in it.
posted by Artw at 10:45 AM on February 24, 2017


On behalf of my two-year-old, more movies with cute animals please. And less scary stuff. Ironic that her favorite, Totoro, doesn't have anything to frighten a young child, but is perhaps the most frightening of Miyazaki's films from a parent's perspective.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:19 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wind Rises was pretty much rejected outright by my kiddo for being too dull and philosophical, FWIW, despite loving every other Miyazaki movie.
posted by Artw at 12:28 PM on February 24, 2017


Miyazaki reaction to the CG is depressing in itself.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:33 PM on February 24, 2017


Ironic that her favorite, Totoro, doesn't have anything to frighten a young child

Interesting. Both my kids were frightened by Totoro and the cat bus. And when Mei ran away, they were scared for her.
posted by zarq at 12:40 PM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


I find the bit with the shoe terrifying, but that's probably a parent thing.
posted by Artw at 12:54 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


As a child between Mei and Satsuki's age when I saw the film for the first time I was scared by the shoe thing, too, although I didn't grok the implications in the same way an older viewer would.
posted by bettafish at 1:37 PM on February 24, 2017


Both my kids were frightened by Totoro and the cat bus.

My kid loves Totoro, whom she identifies as a big rabbit. She shouts MEOW! when the cat bus appears. But she doesn't understand that Mei gets lost, so presumably that part just looks like a lot of fun running around.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 1:45 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ya the shoe is pretty terrifying!
posted by greatwhitenorth at 3:22 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


On the other hand, Mononoke is ridiculously violent but the kid is kind of into that.
posted by Artw at 3:54 PM on February 24, 2017


Miyazaki shows his utter disgust at an animators creepy CG work right in front of him

I keep seeing people post this saying he's rejecting the concept of CG or AI-generated images and maybe he is a little at the end but I think the core of what he's actually saying is about this particular image and how it's being presented - the part about the portrayal of disability.
posted by atoxyl at 4:14 PM on February 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


I agree that Miyazaki is expressing disgust at the particular sample of cg he's been shown, and also at the idea that a computer could replace human animators. As much as i love his work, however, i must disagree. Art must include the grotesque and it also must include the possibility of machine input. It should not be replaced by such, so i suppose i agree with Miyazaki to that extent, and if he doesn't want his company to produce such stuff, it is his call. To be honest, the way the zombie moved reminded me of how the the blob spirit monster moved in Spirited Away.

On topic: Porco Rosso and its depictions of flight are some of my favorite cinematic moments ever.
posted by dazed_one at 9:19 PM on February 24, 2017


I'm such an air nerd that basically the only things in Miyazaki movies I care about are the flying things. I totally loved The Wind Rises, but unlike Artw, I am kid-free, so grouchy existentialist movies about aviation engineering are basically like chocolate to me.
posted by mwhybark at 10:51 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Is the wind still rising?

I really don't know what to make of it really, it's clearly about Miyazaki's own creative process and some stuff he's working out, but overall it's so gloomy about it, and I'm not sure if that's WWII (which sort of happens off screen) or a reflection of Miyazakis own feelings about his work.

Beautiful cursed dreams.
posted by Artw at 11:04 PM on February 24, 2017


byanyothername He makes beautiful movies and I'm glad for them, but there is something a little bittersweet to me about that; especially since Ghibli as a studio have successfully managed to avoid being coopted by commercialization to the same extent as most media/entertainment/art companies.

In Japan there's so much Ghibli merch everywhere you would not believe it. There's whole sections of some department stores devoted to nothing but Ghibli merch. So yeah, pretty commercialized.

As for Miyazaki personally, I suspect you're right. He's certainly got no life/work balance to speak of, and his family relationships seem... strained at best.
posted by sotonohito at 7:29 AM on February 25, 2017


I once read an interview with Juzo Itami who directed Tampopo and The Taxing Woman among other great movies. He described a concept of High Context and Low Context movies. High Context would be a movie that you really had to be a native of the same culture of the movie makers to understand while Low Context would be cross culturally accessible. Itami thought Tampopo and a lot of his movies were deliberately Low Context.

I know it is not a Miyazaki movie but Grave of the Fireflys completely flumoxed me. I watched it and thought I understood it. Than I read about it and what the director and writer said they had intended to mean and It made me realize that I had no idea and no way to understand what they were trying to say. I don't remember the details but I do remember the effect on me which was to chasten any thoughts of universality, especially when it comes to relatively low effort (to consume) like film.

I say all of this as preamble to saying that I really really like the Wind Rises, and I have my own understanding of what it means but in the end I fear that maybe I have no idea what it really means.
posted by Pembquist at 9:29 AM on February 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


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