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MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
228 .......................... 248
__________________________
July 20th
—— 2013 ——
THE TALE OF
THE PRINCESS KAGUYA
—— anime ——
I have always been interested in experiencing this acclaimed anime, almost ever since I learned it could very well be Studio Ghibli’s last film. If that was to happen, I hoped this would at least be a beautiful swan song to the studio and their success. Back when I looked the movie up online, I was blown backwards by the beautiful traditional use of watercolors, meshing perfectly with a traditional folk tale approach, told in respectful manner, about a princess born in a bamboo out in the bushes of Japan. I love myths, legends and old tales from old times, and I have always been very fond of Japanese culture and art. This seemed to be a film that could hit the spot for me and I very much looked forward to it...
Unfortunately, the story was mostly a major bore and the beautiful backgrounds and impressive animation couldn’t keep me in good enough company throughout the entire runtime. Maybe this is a harsh way of starting out here, but though the magic was present the pace kept me from getting truly captured by it. I thought the ideas and tone was quite good, but everything was dragged beyond the barriers of an average individual's attention span. First off, it takes forever to get going and it actually took me two times to get through the first thirty minutes of this movie. I can clearly see the point in portraying the princess' character and the environment she grows up in; how she learns about life and nature's many wonders and how and why the movie needs to properly present her eternal love for this place – both in time and space. Many of these things become important later on and is referenced throughout the film, but the pace is painfully slow and I don't even think the time is spent properly. Things could definitely have been cut shorter, made tighter and appeared all the more impactful for it.
Thankfully the film picks up once the story does, which is when the tale is finally about the princess Kaguya, and not the peculiar child named Kaguya. The film gave me something to care for and think about at last, which was what I was missing earlier on. Finally, the story about a princess born in a bamboo began to bring fruition and the faded appearance of the film suddenly appeared colorful with concepts and discussions. There was plenty of pondering talk about Japanese culture and the ways of being a proper princess, which all worked really well for the movie and awarded the 2D-animated characters with some three-dimensional personalities. There was one character I enjoyed in particular and that was the father, or rather finder, of Kaguya. I really enjoyed to follow the father and the changes to his character; how greedy he became over time, when awarded with fame and fortune and how he didn't do much for his daughter, but more for his princess, and most for himself. It was interesting to see him evolve and lose track of time and place, which made him regret certain things and carry out traditions he didn't even understand much. The mother was obviously the counterpart, who understood Kaguya a whole lot better and wanted what was best for her.
I also really loved the scene where all the potential future husbands came along, where we would be watching each and every one of them trying to win her heart by comparing her beauty to all sorts of supernatural and non-existing stuff. This made the princess suggest that they should all travel out into the open world, and bring home these particular items, which they had never even seen, to a girl they had never even met. Of course, nobody was able to fetch the actual things for her, though they all tried to be creative in various ways. In the end though, she had no intention of marrying after the traditions anyways, since they contradicted with her personality and perception of life. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't follow through with this part of the story, and well, it hardly even began with it after all, so obviously this results in a confused kind of film. It isn't exactly muddled, but it feels like the movie wants to go down three different roads and ends up trying them all throughout, while never walking either of them to the end. Instead it ends up feeling unconnected and unfocused, first walking from a very spiritual and innocent opening, then to a cultural and personal middle, all the way to a magical and mystical fairytale finale.
A fairytale ending might sound like the perfect ending to a magical folk tale, but it felt so rushed, unfinished and out of place. It may be part of the traditional tale, I wouldn't know, but to those experiencing it for the first time, it felt jammed in there and appearing out of nowhere. Suddenly it was all about these moon people coming to take the princess away and every aspect of their origin story felt clipped loosely together like a last minute addition. That might be the only thing feeling rushed about this film though, since the rest dragged much further than the story could handle. Basically, this could have been a very interesting short film, if they hadn't set out to make a feature length film out of what feels like three separate short stories.
With all the above said about the story aspects of the film, it generally presented it all in a tone that felt very true to the traditions of telling a classic legend. There are a lot of themes being repeated throughout – like they should in these kind of stories – and the magical elements are largely shown in just the right way as well. It felt like the director respected the source material and tried to tell it all in a poetic way, which went hand in hand with the mesmerizing images, and this did save it from becoming a total tedious tale of boredom. It may sound like the negativity is very strong compared to the positive notes, but fact is that I’m mostly mad that this film wasn’t as good as it clearly could have been. It had so much potential, but everything seemed to be left in the animation and not the animated film itself. This is a beautiful living painting without much message or meaning, it brushes most of its themes off way too quickly; ultimately appearing as a confused work of art by a talented artist.
__________________________
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
228 .......................... 248
__________________________
July 20th
—— 2013 ——
THE TALE OF
THE PRINCESS KAGUYA
—— anime ——
I have always been interested in experiencing this acclaimed anime, almost ever since I learned it could very well be Studio Ghibli’s last film. If that was to happen, I hoped this would at least be a beautiful swan song to the studio and their success. Back when I looked the movie up online, I was blown backwards by the beautiful traditional use of watercolors, meshing perfectly with a traditional folk tale approach, told in respectful manner, about a princess born in a bamboo out in the bushes of Japan. I love myths, legends and old tales from old times, and I have always been very fond of Japanese culture and art. This seemed to be a film that could hit the spot for me and I very much looked forward to it...
Unfortunately, the story was mostly a major bore and the beautiful backgrounds and impressive animation couldn’t keep me in good enough company throughout the entire runtime. Maybe this is a harsh way of starting out here, but though the magic was present the pace kept me from getting truly captured by it. I thought the ideas and tone was quite good, but everything was dragged beyond the barriers of an average individual's attention span. First off, it takes forever to get going and it actually took me two times to get through the first thirty minutes of this movie. I can clearly see the point in portraying the princess' character and the environment she grows up in; how she learns about life and nature's many wonders and how and why the movie needs to properly present her eternal love for this place – both in time and space. Many of these things become important later on and is referenced throughout the film, but the pace is painfully slow and I don't even think the time is spent properly. Things could definitely have been cut shorter, made tighter and appeared all the more impactful for it.
Thankfully the film picks up once the story does, which is when the tale is finally about the princess Kaguya, and not the peculiar child named Kaguya. The film gave me something to care for and think about at last, which was what I was missing earlier on. Finally, the story about a princess born in a bamboo began to bring fruition and the faded appearance of the film suddenly appeared colorful with concepts and discussions. There was plenty of pondering talk about Japanese culture and the ways of being a proper princess, which all worked really well for the movie and awarded the 2D-animated characters with some three-dimensional personalities. There was one character I enjoyed in particular and that was the father, or rather finder, of Kaguya. I really enjoyed to follow the father and the changes to his character; how greedy he became over time, when awarded with fame and fortune and how he didn't do much for his daughter, but more for his princess, and most for himself. It was interesting to see him evolve and lose track of time and place, which made him regret certain things and carry out traditions he didn't even understand much. The mother was obviously the counterpart, who understood Kaguya a whole lot better and wanted what was best for her.
I also really loved the scene where all the potential future husbands came along, where we would be watching each and every one of them trying to win her heart by comparing her beauty to all sorts of supernatural and non-existing stuff. This made the princess suggest that they should all travel out into the open world, and bring home these particular items, which they had never even seen, to a girl they had never even met. Of course, nobody was able to fetch the actual things for her, though they all tried to be creative in various ways. In the end though, she had no intention of marrying after the traditions anyways, since they contradicted with her personality and perception of life. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't follow through with this part of the story, and well, it hardly even began with it after all, so obviously this results in a confused kind of film. It isn't exactly muddled, but it feels like the movie wants to go down three different roads and ends up trying them all throughout, while never walking either of them to the end. Instead it ends up feeling unconnected and unfocused, first walking from a very spiritual and innocent opening, then to a cultural and personal middle, all the way to a magical and mystical fairytale finale.
A fairytale ending might sound like the perfect ending to a magical folk tale, but it felt so rushed, unfinished and out of place. It may be part of the traditional tale, I wouldn't know, but to those experiencing it for the first time, it felt jammed in there and appearing out of nowhere. Suddenly it was all about these moon people coming to take the princess away and every aspect of their origin story felt clipped loosely together like a last minute addition. That might be the only thing feeling rushed about this film though, since the rest dragged much further than the story could handle. Basically, this could have been a very interesting short film, if they hadn't set out to make a feature length film out of what feels like three separate short stories.
With all the above said about the story aspects of the film, it generally presented it all in a tone that felt very true to the traditions of telling a classic legend. There are a lot of themes being repeated throughout – like they should in these kind of stories – and the magical elements are largely shown in just the right way as well. It felt like the director respected the source material and tried to tell it all in a poetic way, which went hand in hand with the mesmerizing images, and this did save it from becoming a total tedious tale of boredom. It may sound like the negativity is very strong compared to the positive notes, but fact is that I’m mostly mad that this film wasn’t as good as it clearly could have been. It had so much potential, but everything seemed to be left in the animation and not the animated film itself. This is a beautiful living painting without much message or meaning, it brushes most of its themes off way too quickly; ultimately appearing as a confused work of art by a talented artist.
__________________________