Year: 2012

This was the second film I got to see at the Civic Theatre in downtown Auckland, this time with my host-sister. I got to get pretty excited for it via an impromptu Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli marathon that’s been going on for the past week and a half or so. Since we decided to go see this I’ve watched The Cat Returns, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and half of Porco Rosso. Also, I’ve been reading Ursula K Leguin’s Tales from Earthsea, which is of course eons better than Goro Miyazaki’s film adaptation and thus the source of slight uncertainty about how much I would like From Up On Poppy Hill. This film came out in Japan last year and its writing team included both Goro and his dad the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

It was absolutely breathtaking seeing a Studio Ghibli movie on the silver screen. The last film I saw like this was Spirited Away 10 years ago when I was in the 6th grade. Thus the fact that I watched this one here in New Zealand was special in its own way.

Anyway, the thing about this on big screen was how I got to see its stunning scenery and landscapes and characters so life-size. It was truly enthralling.

The story was incredibly complex in a mundane (that is: lacking fantastical qualities) sense, centering on the relationship between high schoolers Umi and Shun. Their budding romance against the backdrop of a student-led movement to save a historical clubhouse “The Latin Quartier,” reminiscent of Howl’s bedroom. And really if I say much more than that about the plot I’ll give the whole thing away. And I might give the whole thing away by saying the following but who cares. It was an awesome story that reminded me strongly of Fiela’s Child by Dalene Mathee which is cool ’cause that was one of my favorite international books I read in high school.

I thought it was wonderful how well the plots and sub-plots were woven together. There were even moments when Tina and I exchanged glances that said, Wow, I actually have no idea what’s going to happen. All the minor characters were, as usual, stunning, but I’ve got to say that my favorite minor characters were the Philosophy guy (this huge dude with a hilarious face who would work himself into huge fits of fervor and sweat and cry through his nose and stuff) and the artist that stayed with Umi. Seeing this on big screen meant not having to miss the shots where people were FREAKING OUT in the background and that was the source of a lot of really hard laughs.

Okay but I just need to say that I’m really waiting for a Ghibli film that has an excitable main female character. Gosh I mean aside from bursting into tears at one point, she was quite taciturn and soft-spoken. That certainly has its place, but that archetype seems to be held in some sort of reverence in a lot of Japanese/Asian works I’ve seen. I’m sorry but I connect more with a girl that randomly starts laughing or yelling at someone, more like Ponyo except she’s five so that’s not exactly a good example. And I guess Chihiro does that but again she’s like 12. I’m sorry to say that I kind of found her boring. Shun wasn’t much better but he at least had a really strong reaction to [certain plot points that shall remain undisclosed] that carried the tension a lot further than Umi did.

That’s really my only complaint though, and it’s not exactly a huge one. Over all, what a lovely experience!

I’m going to write the skeleton for this post and come back to it in the morning, because I so did not notice it’s already 11:30. The Civic Theatre was oh so awesome and reminded me of the Orpheum, with its grandiosity and decoration and the general air of awesomeness.

Okay sorry but I need to go to bed. Sorry if people are reading this from Far, usually I’m pretty sloppy in here BECAUSE I CAN BE.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is going to be one of those movies that wins all the awards even people can’t quite say why. By means of describing it, I would say it will be a story that one day becomes fable. Set in the harsh reality of an impoverished bayou community, the viewer quickly finds beauty in this rich setting even if only thanks to the film’s charming narrator, 6-year-old Hushpuppy. She weaves magic into this gritty scene and helps the film to walk the line between fantasy and reality.

One of the best-told, tensest moments in the film was when Hushpuppy’s daddy came home in hospital scrubs with a patient bracelet around his wrist, angry and disoriented, and unable to answer Hushpuppy’s cries of concern for him. So she runs back to “her house” and turns on the stove burner as high as it can go, watching her pot of cat food and condensed milk start to smoke and hiss. She starts her house on fire and climbs under a cardboard box, and her narration tells of how she’s left her story behind for the scientists of the future, and it’ll tell them everything.
She and her daddy get out of the burning house just in time but she runs from him. When he strikes her in the woods she declares, “I hope you die! I hope you die, and when you die, Imma go to your grave and eat all the birthday cake by myself!” (best line of the movie, in my opinion).
It’s not just for that line I liked this scene. It just set an incredibly intense dynamic for the father and daughter relationship, because we see he’s vulnerable even if Hushpuppy doesn’t understand, and we see she cares for him but he doesn’t know how to let her.
This, too, is the scene that heralds in the tropical storm to which the rest of the movie responds.

The whole film is wrought with spine-tingling moments, scenes and images that brought my hand to my heart or over my mouth, and the kind of beauty that makes you cringe but doesn’t fail to take your breath away.

There are a few “hiccups” I can’t overlook, though. The theme of the “beasts,” which are huge physical boars reminiscent of “Princess Mononoke,” was not satisfyingly developed. Fernando and I were sort of guessing what they really meant to the film. While the point at the end when Hushpuppy turned to face them still gave me chills, I for all my literary analysis can’t quite sort out what they meant. They might have been a metaphor for Hushpuppy’s character, or for the weather, or for fortune…it’s ambiguous in a way that’s more annoying than helpful.

I had a pretty neat experience seeing this film, at the premiere show for the Auckland International Film Festival with my new Spaniard friend Fernando. The Civic theatre is on the corner of two major metropolitan roads, Queen and Wellesley. You reach it on foot, crossing huge intersections with swarms of people, and walk into an old-fashioned building that would have been much cooler if my European companion hadn’t been dissing my standards of old architecture :P.
The actual cinema, as pictured in this sample I found (no photography inside, we found out the hard way), is breathtaking. Reminding me of the Orpheum with its grandeur and decoration, I loved the Siamese-style pillars and of course the stars that lit up over our heads with drifting clouds. It made me feel like I was really at an event, coupled with the fact that the director of the festival opened with a speech for the premiere show. I really enjoyed it and I am so excited to have 2 more films to look forward to at the Civic!