SPIRITED AWAY: THE FILMS OF STUDIO GHIBLI at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West), today (Thursday, December 12) to January 3, 2014. See Indie & Rep Film. tiff.net/ghibli. Rating: NNNN
Lost touch with your inner child over the last few months? TIFF Cinematheque lets you reactivate your sense of wonder over the holidays with the return of Spirited Away: The Films Of Studio Ghibli.
First mounted for March break 2012, the retrospective shows 18 features from Hayao Miyazaki’s celebrated Japanese animation house, many in separate Japanese and English screenings. Japanese versions are subtitled in English the dubbed versions feature all-star voice casts produced by Walt Disney Pictures for DVD release in North America.
I haven’t always been a big fan of Miyazaki’s salad-bar approach to mythology. When he brought Princess Mononoke to TIFF, he told me he just sort of lets images collect in his head and then makes a movie around them, and whether that movie makes sense or not isn’t really his concern. (He was also kind of a dick to his translator in a roomful of journalists, which I’ve never forgotten and which grates against the image of the beloved, munificent wizard Studio Ghibli cultivates around him.)
When his strategy works, though, something wonderful happens: the thrilling adventure of Castle In The Sky and Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind, the cruel magics of Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, the delicate atmosphere of The Secret World Of Arrietty. And my two favourite Miyazaki features, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, are pure childhood on a screen, with delightful characters interacting with one another in worlds where literally anything is possible.
A key difference from the 2012 series is that TIFF has acquired Isao Takahata’s stunning, unforgettable 1988 masterwork Grave Of The Fireflies – an animated drama in no way intended for children, and not exactly holiday fodder either.
Grave Of The Fireflies depicts the ravages of the Second World War on Japan from the perspective of a brother and sister whose lives become an increasingly horrific struggle for survival after the firebombing of Kobe. As food grows scarce and the populace more bestial, teenage Seita finds himself forced to darker and darker places to shield his little sister, Setsuko, from the misery around them.
I have only watched it in a theatre once, years ago. I could not imagine doing so again. A quarter of a century after its original release, Grave Of The Fireflies has lost none of its devastating grace and may even have grown more powerful in its dramatic arc.
You probably think I’m overselling it. I’m not. Jesse Wente, TIFF’s head of film programmes, introduces the film on December 20 hopefully he’ll be around afterward to hold people until they stop weeping.
The series kicks off tonight (Thursday, December 12) with a master class with Guillermo del Toro on Castle In The Sky, but that’s already sold out. My inner child just kicked some dirt and skulked off to bed.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision
