A Palme d'Or for Studio Ghibli

by Cláudio Alves

NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984) is the only Miyazaki film ever screened at Cannes.

In 1997, to mark the occasion of its 50th edition, the Cannes Film Festival awarded a special Palme des Palmes to Ingmar Bergman. Afterward, and since 2002, it has also attributed the Honorary Palme d'Or to film artists in honor of their esteemed careers. Until now, the prize has gone to directors, producers and actors such as Catherine Deneuve, Manoel de Oliveira, and Agnès Varda, among many others. This year, however, the festival will award its first Palme d'Or to animated cinema and a group rather than an individual. The honoree is Studio Ghibli, cofounded by Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, and the dear departed Isao Takahata. This comes after The Boy and the Heron won the studio its second Oscar and breaks with American dominance over these Honorary awards in the past few years.

It's a joyous occasion but it's also imbued with a fair amount of sorrow…

Click to read more ...

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…

Click to read more ...

My Miyazaki Ranking: Part Three – Self-Portraits

by Cláudio Alves

One way or another, artists can't help but put some part of themselves into their work. It might not be obvious or a direct expression of character. It might not even be conscious on their part. However, it's there for those willing to see, from works by the most self-effacing hacks to world-renowned auteurs. Hayao Miyazaki is no different, though he's sometimes prone to underselling just how personal some of his pictures can be. Of course, there's no denying the introspection happening in his most recent "last films," and not even the director has tried to distance The Wind Rises or The Boy and the Heron from such interpretations. But there's more self-portraiture in his filmography than just those late-career triumphs. I'd say there's a lot of Miyazaki in a little witch who loved to fly…

Click to read more ...

My Miyazaki Ranking: Part Two – Princesses & Pigs

by Cláudio Alves

If you've ever seen the Never-Ending Man documentary, you'll be familiar with Hayao Miyazaki's complex relationship with new technologies, in animation and otherwise. The film's most famous quote relates to AI, which the Ghibli co-founder strongly feels is "an insult to life itself." However, there's more to it since Miyazaki has attempted and succeeded in combining the possibilities of CGI with traditional techniques. You can see this in the same non-fiction work as the director unsteadily creates Boro, the Caterpillar, one of those shorts exclusively screened at the Ghibli Park and Museum. Still, even as the result may dazzle, the process to get there is a barrage of frustrations for the old master.

Today's Miyazaki tryptic goes against hybridized approaches. Instead, it finds an embrace of hand-drawn animation in its purest form, divested of computerized witchcraft and the like…

Click to read more ...

My Miyazaki Ranking: Part One - CastleMania

by Cláudio Alves

After its triumph on Oscar night, The Boy and the Heron is returning to cinemas all over the world. To commemorate this theatrical re-release and start closing my chapter of the 2023 film year, I took this opportunity to review Hayao Miyazaki's entire oeuvre. And so, we find ourselves standing before one of the greatest filmographies in the medium's history - animated or otherwise - ready to rank the master's twelve features. I'd love to share my thoughts on Miyazaki's shorts, but sadly, most of them are exclusively shown at the Ghibli Park and Museum. Maybe someday I'll be able to witness their beauty - one can dream.

From times when Studio Ghibli was naught but a dream to its twilight years, spanning half a dozen retirements and the loss of countless colleagues, Miyazaki's gift to cinema is a sprawling wonder. This shall be my personal ranking, not definitive by any means as it's a love letter, an expression of the utmost awe. Ask me in a week, and I'll order the films differently. Today, this is how I see them…

Click to read more ...