My Miyazaki Ranking: Part Four – The Eternal Mystery

by Cláudio Alves

Exploring Hayao Miyazaki's filmography is to dive into a cinema that's often as moving as it is mysterious. Connections to the land abound, calling for ecological harmony in a place ravaged by modernity. Tradition dances with progress, teetering on the edge of oblivion, while dreams soar high above the clouds, for flight is the highest form of freedom. Even his most straightforward exercises tend to have an oneiric touch, some connection to the unknown within us and the world we inhabit. Because he taps into such (un)realities, Miyazaki's narrative work can move between genres and expectations, often complicating conflicts beyond the usual archetypes or doing away with them altogether. And through it all, animation allows the impossible to become possible, the screen a window to imagination unbound…

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Nicecore-palooza

by Cláudio Alves

Upon the US release of Paddington 2 in 2018, film critic David Ehrlich wrote about a new age of optimistic movies. He called this phenomenon, nice core. They were films that emerged in the era of Trump and Brexit, little rays of celluloid sunshine that celebrated the power of kindness and the wonder of humanity from filmmakers living in an increasingly cruel world. If you're looking for formalistic vanguard or challenging experiences, you won't find it in this type of cinema, though that doesn't have to be necessarily bad. Art of modest ambition whose main purpose is comfort shouldn't be undervalued.

One could almost say that, when ironic detachment becomes standard, the exaltation of sincere cinema can be a radical gesture…

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