Spirited Away
Feb. 22nd, 2023 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipYesterday I had the very pleasant opportunity to see the Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli anime film "Spirited Away" (2001) at RMIT's extraordinary Capitol Theatre in early art-deco style. Like many films from this truly exceptional director it includes a rich narrative and deep thematic content in a Shinto-inspired fantastic setting, along with a beautiful soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi. In the course of the story, Miyazaki includes concerns about environmentalism, and steadfast ethics of a kind, and naturalistic simplicity in opposition to greed and materialism. Hayao Miyazaki is, of course, known for his strong anti-war (c.f., "The Wind Rises", "Grave of the Fireflies", "Howl's Moving Castle"), socialist (c.f., "Porco Rosso"), environmental (c.f., "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", "Princess Mononoke", "Pom Poko"), and feminist (c.f., "Spirited Away", "Kiki's Delivery Service") messages. It is, given the extraordinary range of work, difficult to pick a favourite, but I think there is something quite epic and complex in the historical fantasy of "Princess Mononoke", although in a very different style and for different reasons I find "The Wind Rises" very touching as well.
On reflection, I find that much of my own life follows similar thematic considerations which probably explains why I enjoy Hayao Miyazaki's films so much. Yes, the aesthetic is superb in its own right, but it is the themes and characters that provide the greatest inspiration. Sometimes this can be expressed in apparently mundane matters; after the film, I attended a Labor Party branch meeting, which was addressed by both the Federal MHR and State MLA, with notable discussion and plans for the Voice referendum, infrastructure development, and reform of the Reserve Bank - boring to some, but the sorts of things that actually change lives; the disparity between people's lives and institutional politics is perhaps the single greatest problem confronting contemporary societies. In a somewhat different manner, I'm powering along seeking to finish my Psych degree early (the final paper is effectively social psychology), so I can make a good start on the Climate Science degree. The trimester is supposed to start next week; I'm currently up to week four of the content! It may seem a long way from being trapped in a parallel universe trying to save a river spirit that's taken the form of a dragon - but the intrinsic motivation is very much the same.
On reflection, I find that much of my own life follows similar thematic considerations which probably explains why I enjoy Hayao Miyazaki's films so much. Yes, the aesthetic is superb in its own right, but it is the themes and characters that provide the greatest inspiration. Sometimes this can be expressed in apparently mundane matters; after the film, I attended a Labor Party branch meeting, which was addressed by both the Federal MHR and State MLA, with notable discussion and plans for the Voice referendum, infrastructure development, and reform of the Reserve Bank - boring to some, but the sorts of things that actually change lives; the disparity between people's lives and institutional politics is perhaps the single greatest problem confronting contemporary societies. In a somewhat different manner, I'm powering along seeking to finish my Psych degree early (the final paper is effectively social psychology), so I can make a good start on the Climate Science degree. The trimester is supposed to start next week; I'm currently up to week four of the content! It may seem a long way from being trapped in a parallel universe trying to save a river spirit that's taken the form of a dragon - but the intrinsic motivation is very much the same.
