By Dennis Hartley
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 15, 2017)
In my 2010 review of a lovely, little-seen film from Mexico called Alamar, I wrote:
To say that “nothing happens” in Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s leisurely paced cinematic tone-poem, set against the backdrop of Mexico’s intoxicating Banco Chinchorro, is to deny that the rhythm of life has a pulse. […]. If you can’t wait for it to end so you can turn your phone back on and check all those “important” messages, I suspect that the film’s message, telegraphed in the sunlit shimmer of a crystalline coral reef, or in the light of love on a father’s face as he watches his son slowly drift off to sleep, is destined to never get through to you anyway.
I had a similar takeaway from The Red Turtle, the latest offering by Japan’s renowned Studio Ghibli. Writer-director Michael Dudok de Wit and co-writer Pascale Ferran’s gorgeously rendered anime is a minimally-scripted paella made from equal parts Robinson Crusoe, Irish selkie/Venus-Aphrodite mythology, and, uh, the Book of Genesis.
Set in an indeterminate time period (educated guess: early-to-mid 19th Century), the tale centers on a shipwrecked (sailor? explorer? pirate? adventurer?) who gets washed up onto the beach of a tiny (Pacific?) island. An exploration of his new environs quickly gives indication that, save the birds, crabs, and baby sea turtles, he is completely, utterly, alone.
Whether or not he is destined to remain by his lonesome in a cruel and unfeeling universe will be revealed to you by the second act; in the interest of avoiding spoilers, all I am prepared to divulge beyond this point of the narrative is that yes – a red turtle is involved.
As I inferred earlier, de Wit’s film has a dearth of narrative and/or character development, but the stunning visuals help make up the deficit (in my experience, Studio Ghibli never fails to deliver the eye candy). Still, some viewers may find it tough going by the time the story enters its more conventional 3rd act, which does lean toward cliché.
The key to enjoying this film (should that be your wont) is to go in with no expectations, and get lost in its beauty; because (if I may again paraphrase from my Alamar review) “…analogous to the complex and delicate eco-system that sustains the reef, there is more going on just beneath the surface than meets the eye.” Because after all, as the great Jacques Cousteau cautioned… “We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.”
I have sat through more than my fair share of “body swap” movies over the years (OK, “decades” may be more apropos), but it’s been quite a while since I have experienced one as original and entertaining as Makoto Shinkai’s animated fantasy, Your Name. Adapted by the director from his own novel, Shinkai’s film has the distinction of being Japan’s most popular and largest-grossing anime (in-country) to not originate from the Studio Ghibli hit factory (the film’s limited U.S. run is being distributed by Funimation Films).
The story concerns a teenage girl named Mitsuha, (voiced by Mone Kamishiraishi) who lives in a bucolic mountain village, and a teenage boy named Taki (voiced by Ryunosuke Kamiki), who resides in bustling Tokyo. They are separated by geography and blissfully unaware of each other’s existence, but they both share the heady roller coaster ride of hormone-fueled late adolescence, replete with all its attendant anxieties and insecurities.
Mitsuha, who was raised to be a modest country girl with traditional Japanese values, is consumed by a kind of urban wanderlust; eager to finish high school so she can escape her small town and break out on her own to seek adventure and excitement in Tokyo. Taki, on the other hand, takes his metropolitan lifestyle for granted, and plans on becoming an architect, or perhaps an artist. Mitsuha and Taki are both socially awkward.
You know where this is going, don’t you? There’s something else that Mitsuha and Taki are sharing. They’ve both been having very strange dreams as of late; Taki wakes up one morning, and it seems he’s still dreaming…because his physiology is decidedly female, and he’s living in a rural mountain village where people insist on calling him “Mitsuha” through the course of an eventful day at an unfamiliar high school. “She” goes to bed.
The next time Taki awakens, he’s Taki again (anatomy checks out correctly, much to his relief). However, everyone is giving him funny looks at school. His friends are asking him if he’s OK…and wondering why he was acting so weird the day before.
Once we next get to watch Mitsuha having a similar experience (she “dreams” she is a boy named Taki, lives in Tokyo, and spends an equally unsettling day at an unfamiliar high school), we start to put 2 + 2 together. These two are together…but not altogether. Together apart?
WTF is going on with these two? I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.
So I won’t. Because, a). I can’t afford to lose a reader, and b). It might spoil your fun. Sinkai’s film is a perfect blend of fantasy, metaphysical sci-fi, mystery, coming-of-age tale, humor, and even old-fashioned tear-jerker (yes…I laughed, and I cried). It’s a visual feast as well; the animation is outstanding. It’s not playing at a lot of theaters, so if it pops up in your neck of the woods, do not pass up an opportunity to catch it on the big screen.
