Showing posts with label hayao miyazaki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hayao miyazaki. Show all posts

24 January 2014

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Spirited Away (2001)

#inspirationalmovies 


Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyazaki) goes into the same box as much of children's adventure. Like Dorothy or like Sarah, Chihiro finds herself in a situation that requires her to become a better person than she has been so far and a braver one, too.
And somewhat more like Baby, she's challenged to stand up for people she loves (with no sexual connotations though, this is a PG animation apt for children).

According to Academy Awards, this is the best movie of Miyazaki (won the Oscar as best animation in 2003) who has been creating meaningful girl characters and girl-centered films throughout his professional life (see Nausicaä, Satsuki and Mei, Kiki, or Sophie). Probably the most convincing feature of them all is the multidimensional humanness (the one that Disney princesses lack to some extent).
Chihiro - and other characters, like the adorable witch twin-sisters - is cranky, capricious, and indecisive at times. They are not the same with all the people. They are angry, afraid, hungry... Like anybody, you know. And still they have the most breathtaking, epic adventures.

29 November 2013

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

#inspirationalmovies 


Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Hayao Miyazaki) is a warrior-princess story. While it goes a bit further in the dedication-for-your-cause scale than healthy, requiring effort close to self-sacrifice, that does not change the fact that Nausicaä is beyond any pochahontas out there (well, apart from being a fictional while the other one was not).

Miyazaki does follow a feminism-of-difference argument on the innocent-girl-in-touch-with-nature saving her world and outsmarting the establishment, but that gets somewhat balanced with the fact that the invader leader is also a woman... Anyways, here you have a full-blown (animated) action movies with an underlying environmental concern with a great (very active and independent indeed) female lead. Inspirational it is.