Studio Ghibli- Hayao Miyazaki (1986)Although definitely geared towards a younger audience, the film is animated classic that is incredibly creative and enjoyable to watch. It takes place in what resembles a Anglo Saxon city during some sort of neo industrial revolution, complete with sprawling industrial landscapes and majestic air ships to create a prevailing ‘steam punk’ aesthetic. The story begins with a gang of pirates attacking an air ship and a young girl, Sheeta, falling to the earth. Miraculously the strange crystal she was wearing delivers her safely to the ground. Pazu, a young miner, finds her and they become friends. The crystal’s power quickly attracts the attention of the pirates and the army, who soon give chase to the two heroes. An obvious cat and mouse adventure ensues. As the plot unravels, it is unveiled that the stone is from a lost civilization that existed on a floating city above the clouds. When a powerful robot mysteriously falls from the sky, the military is convinced that the city exists and that Sheeta and the crystal are the clue to finding it. After Sheeta unlocks the crystal’s power, it points the way to the lost city, and soon both the army and the pirates are in a race to reach it first. With the stone in the hands of the army, Sheeta and Pazu travel with the pirates, seeing past their mean exteriors and unveiling their gentler human dimension. Eventually both teams reach ‘Laputa’ the mythical city in the sky, where a high-ranking colonel reveals his sinister intentions of using the cities destructive power for personal gain. Now it is up to Sheeta and Pazu to prevent the city from falling into the hands of colonel and saving the world below.
Animation is an interesting aspect of film that struggles to get the recognition it deserves. It has advantages and disadvantages over traditional film. The advantage is obvious in that there are no creative constraints. Maybe this is why animations are so popular with children, whose imaginations are still unpolluted by rules of logic or principles of general physics. Anything that the director can imagine, they can create. Even the most overhyped Hollywood film, with excessive special effects budgets are constrained by gravity and economics. Special effect teams can easily make a single person fly through the air with cables and a green screen. However, trying to make ten, a hundred, or a thousand people fly in a scene is much more difficult, if not impossible. With animation, it does not matter, since the character and environment on the screen is a drawing or computer model subject to complete control of the animator. With animation, the creative possibilities are limitless.
Conversely, the disadvantage is the limited range of human expression a ‘cartoon’ character can convey. Any respectable actor can say a million things without saying a single word, just by a minor change in their facial expression or body language. On the other hand, an animated character maybe has a few dozen different expressions. Think of the facial expressions of Homer Simpson compared to Jack Nicolson. Think of the ephemeral and subtle details of the human face, dimples, scars, acne, and stubble. All of which would be impossible to capture in a drawing, let alone full-length animated feature. Granted with the advancement of computers, animations have gained ground in the above area, but there is still no competition. This is why it is so difficult to treat animations as films, because they lack the human component. To speak of an animation as a film, to compare Miyazaki in the same league as Fellini or Lynch, it has to create a world so completely removed from the laws of reality. It has to present a level of creativity so high, that the director could never realize with human actors and traditional methods. Castle in the Sky easily meets the above criteria, and is not only a great animation, but is a great film.
The film is distinctively Canadian, characteristically Québécois, in the sense that it mixes English (Hollywood) and French (European) influences, a common theme in the country’s history and culture. It combines a high degree of intelligent content common to many French films with a cohesive and entertaining structure found in many American films. As a broad generalization, the latter is primarily entertainment driven, which they do very well, and content is secondary. While in Europe, it seems that the reverse is true. Films that rely too much on the content often lack any entertainment merit, verging on pretentiousness and becoming a bad cliché. Watching a dialogue centering on some philosophical abstraction can be interesting intellectually, but is likely not very entertaining. Entertainment value is extremely important to film. It is what keeps the audience engaged. It makes films fun to watch. It is what generates millions of dollars in revenue and keeps the industry running. Conversely, many films that are extremely entertaining, lack substance. The viewer quickly forgets about the film. It does little to expand their conscience, raise questions, or promote discussion. Very few directors can successfully balance both sides, especially when trying to make an economically viable project.
‘Incendies’ is one of the rare examples that get the balance right, resulting in an amazing film. It exudes intelligence, taking a stance on the perversity of ideologies, recanting a modern interpretation of a famous Greek tragedy, and exploring the geopolitical climate of the Middle East, all while being incredibly entertaining. It is interesting that all the towns and countries in the story are fictional. Although, the film hints that it takes place in Lebanon at the start of the civil war. The story is applicable to anyone of the countless countries in Central or Southwest Asia that plagued by sectarian conflict over the past fifty years. By not pegging the film to a specific place or event in history, it makes a broader philosophical statement about the dangers of ideologies and continued senseless violence associated with them.
Speaking to the entertainment merit of the film, at no point in the story is the viewer ever disengaged or disinterested. The discomforting nature of the subject matter coupled with the disturbing images from the civil war keeps the audience captivated and eyes glued to the screen. Besides the content, the scenes constantly jump between suburban Montreal, rural Lebanon, and various other unnamed locations throughout the Middle East, recanting moments from the mother’s past and the children’s present. This sensory juxtaposition of revolving landscapes at different points in time helps further engage the audience and create a well-paced narrative. The director also uses music, notably Radio Head’s song ‘You and Whose Army?’, to help build tension at key moments throughout the film. The melodramatic song progressively builds to a breaking point that fits the emotion of the film perfectly. It is undoubtedly one of the best pairing of popular music and cinema, although the song would work well in almost any film. These elements, the combination of intelligent content, spectacle and entertainment, are what make ‘Incendies’ such an incredible and arguably the best Canadian film ever made.
From a popular culture perspective, the films significance is undeniable. Black leather jackets, dark washed jeans, and motorcycles are still symbolic icons of ‘cool’. There is even a rumor that ‘The Beetles’, the most popular music group of the century are named after the rival gang and a popular modern American blues rock band credit their namesake to the film. From a cinematic perspective, there is not much to the film. The plot is timid and predictable. The acting, with the minor exception of Brando and Marvin, is lukewarm. However, the subtle cultural differences are what make the film interesting. For example, the BRMC all love listening to jazz, which is interesting because It is difficult to associate jazz with motorcycle gangs. Stereotypically one thinks of outlaw bikers listening to heavy metal or similar high intensity music coupled with violent lyrics. Conversely, jazz is associated with a high level of musical erudition, requiring a refined ear to understand the order and complexity behind the chaos. However, at that time there was no Rock and Roll. Elvis Presley only walked in to Sun Studios to record his first single in August of that year (1953). There was only the blues, which although would later evolve into rock, lacked the energy essential to fuel teenage angst. Conversely, Jazz had the required intensity and tempo to match the teenage libido. It was unruly and unpredictable, essentially a perfect soundtrack for misguided and rebellious youth. The resulting images of rowdy outlaw bikers wearing black leather jackets drinking beer and dancing to avant-garde jazz make the film so unique and interesting to watch. Besides the music, being able to understand the countless cultural references associated with the film, make it worthwhile to watch.
What is interesting about the film is that it has common elements from both western and film noir genre. Sturges obviously borrowed the suspense, plot, and style of the film from the latter. The black suit, the dark secret, the unresolved murder, the fedora are all classic elements of the stylish crime dramas. This classic uniform is in contrast against the clear blue desert sky and dusty pale hues the town throughout the film constantly reminding the viewer of the genres’ influence. However, there are many elements from the Wild West mixed in, which is not surprising given the directors history of westerns (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Magnificent Seven). Symbols characteristic to the genre, including a drunken powerless sheriff and a local strong man who decides what is right and wrong are present in the film. That is the whole point of Westerns, that they are primitive. These societies do not define morality by laws or creed but by whoever is quickest with the gun. One cannot depend on the government to always protect and coddle them. They have to fend for themselves, by any means necessary. It is very American. It is why John Wayne is such a potent and everlasting symbol of American culture. This combination of the two greatest genres in American Cinema make the film such a great classic to watch.
Films like Lilja-4-Ever are difficult to write about because of the severe nature of the subject matter. How can someone recommend a film about child sexual exploitation, where teenagers sniff glue and commit suicide on screen, because they thought the film’s narrative was well done or the sound track was interesting? Ultimately, one must judge the film within its context to determine if the content is justified. They must determine whether the director successfully matched the brutality of the images and story with the seriousness of the subject matter. If it is unbalanced in either direction, the film is an epic failure, especially when handling extremely controversial topics. While it is true, that the director could have had much of the truly disturbing scenes take place take place off camera and retain the potent message of the film. The fact is that humans have become so desensitized to disturbing images that artists need to resort to new depths of depravity to get our attention. Moodysson does this very well, almost too well. The scenes in the film get progressively more brutal to the inevitable conclusion, bringing out so many raw emotions in the audience that range from hate to compassion and are impossible to ignore. Maybe that is why we like films like this, or at least like them enough to warrant their creation, because we find them cathartic. Maybe seeing how fucked up someone else’s life is or can be, makes us feel better about our own relatively minor problems and the social context is just an excuse to evade censorship. Regardless, the way Moodysson creates a universe that is completely tragic and utterly devoid of any hope to bring attention to a real and grave injustice speaks to the power of cinema.