Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Imagine The Lorax as a concept album by Yes - and you get something of the flavor of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (or Kaze no tani no Naushika). It is one of Hayao Miyazaki's earlier films, an environmentalist tract that, in some ways, prefigures his 1997 Princess Mononke. Nausicaä is a princess forced to fight to defend her people in a future world devastated by years of industrial pollution. Pockets of the planet's population survive but all are threatened by a toxic forest teeming with monster insects. Until the rather abrupt ending, Nausicaä has a much more straightforward narrative arc than other Miyazaki movies like Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle. Oh, and my kids really liked it too.

Spirited Away

Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001) This is the first Miyazaki animation I have seen, and it's a little off-putting to be hit with so much in one film--a bit like "Yellow Submarine" but with crystal meth instead of mushrooms--everything's just a little bit threatening. And one has to get used to the sudden shifts in motivations of characters at times, and the almost constant sense of dislocation. Puts one in sympathy with the main character, certainly, and keeps one mindful that we're back in Oz, again, except the Emerald City is a bathhouse, and the Great and Powerful Oz is also the Wicked Witch of the West. Better take "Howl's Moving Castle" off the queue, and replace it with "My Neighbor Totoro." K. lost patience with it 90 minutes in, and went to bed.