The Ghibli Effect

“I would like to make a film to tell children "it's good to be alive".”

― Hayao Miyazaki


I was introduced to Studio Ghibli at a young age by my neighbor, a school teacher who wanted to see if these films were appropriate to show to her students for class -- lucky for me (and the kids) because it helped me develop a deep appreciation for the medium. From that day on, I loved the films of Ghibli and studio founder Hayao Miyazaki. I didn't know why I loved them, I just did.

They were rendered in glorious, traditional 2D, they were scary, yet funny, had all kinds of crazy monsters, and best of all there was no sign of princesses, or heroes with chiseled chins and washboard abs, or anything that was standard Disney fare. These were usually the stories of common, everyday people like myself. Even now as an adult, having just returned from an extremely stressful stay in Eastern Europe, I find myself relating more than I ever did to Chihiro, who had to grow up fast in the harsh Japanese spirit world, or the sisters Mei & Satsuki and the very real threat of losing their mother.

With Mr. Miyazaki's recent retirement, I've been revisiting all these films and I think I've finally discovered what makes them so special -- because as I soon learned after my first viewing, not all Japanese animation has this much heart.

Unfortunately the answer isn't just one thing I can point to and go "That's it!" but rather a mixture of things all done with love and precision, that made even the boys over at Disney and Pixar bow their heads in reverence.

Foremost and most obvious is the imagination that goes into them. Look at the Cat-Bus in My Neighbor Totoro. Or the Castle in Howl's Moving Castle. Or anything in Spirited Away past the 10 minute mark.

Howl's Moving Castle

I mean doesn't that thing totally live up to it's name? When you tell someone a movie has a Cat-Bus in it, that sets certain expectations and this film just blows it away. It's even cooler than you'd imagine a cat bus hybrid could ever be.

"But" I hear you ask, "Lots of stuff has a cool and interesting art style, what makes Miyazaki different from say Don Bluth, or John Lasseter, or Ralph Bakshi?"

I think, it's that his films are reserved, reticent, harmonious, and a bunch of other words I had to find using a thesaurus. At no point, do you feel rushed by a Hayao Miyazaki film. They take time-out to breath, to let you soak in the world, become immersed in the characters and the setting. I wanna say they're slow paced, but that's not really accurate. It's like watching life at half the speed, you notice all the tiny, beautiful details that we usually miss.

To quote Hayao himself:

"What my friends and I have been trying to do since the 1970's is to try and quiet things down a little bit; don't just bombard them with noise and distraction. And to follow the path of children's emotions and feelings as we make a film. If you stay true to joy and astonishment and empathy you don't have to have violence and you don't have to have action. They'll follow you. This is our principle."

The entire studio Ghibli library walks this incredibly thin line between not enough going on, and too much -- and all the while they still manage to tell these very human stories. I find the whole thing really quite amazing. Even greats like Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, and Quentin Tarantino have misfires, but here's Miyazaki with a career that's spanned four decades and he continues to make it look effortless.... until his sudden, although completely deserving retirement.

Lastly, I need to mention the music because it's terrific. Every stirring moment is accompanied by some of the most beautiful music I've heard in motion pictures.

In closing, I know this is long overdue, but I raise my glass to one of animation's finest directors and proclaim proudly (with a hint of sadness) "adieu".. or maybe さようなら would be more appropriate.
If you haven't seen any of these, I'd say give it a shot... But don't take it from me, take it from John Lasseter.