Skip to main content

Theophanic Platypus: Or Why I Love the Films of Hayao Miyazaki

I love watching the films of Japanese director and animator Hayao Miyazaki.  At this point, I've seen almost everything of his I can get my hands on.  There's a simple why to this: great production value and great story-telling.  The closest thing I've seen to it in American film is Pixar, and Lasseter makes no bones about the intellectual and creative debt he owes to Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.  To put a finer point on it, however, I love Miyazaki's films for their theophanies.

Many, if not all, of Miyazaki's films has a moment in which the world as it appears to us, physical and mundane, is pierced by a deeper spiritual reality.  This moment, the revelation of the divine (or theophany), leaves the charaters of Miyazaki's dramas transformed.  Whether it's the Spirit of the Forest in "Princess Mononoke," the Sea Goddess in "Ponyo," or the cloud of slain pilots in "Porco Rosso," these moments of spiritual revelation form the linchpin of the story.  In this way, all of Miyazaki's films function as a journey into fairyland with the protagonists being drawn out of their noramal lives to have a radical encounter with the Other that offers the opportunity, sometimes taken and sometimes rejected, for growth and empowerment.

Again and again I find myself comparing the effect with that produced by the writings of George MacDonald.  Myazaki knows how to re-mythologize the world; to take our daily lives, hallow them, and give them back to us with a renewed sense of the sacredness of existence.  In rapidly secularizing America, that comes as a breath of fresh air.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
10 comments
Read more

Under the Moon: The Platypus Reads Part LXVI

My wife and I were discussing our favorite books from the Chronicles of Narnia on our way back from lunch.  My wife, true to her sunny personality, is a staunch fan of "The Voyage of the Dawntreader."  I can't argue with that choice but, when push comes to shove, "The Silver Chair" has always been my favorite. I have a bit of a theory.  I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend.  If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line. That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much.  When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me.  I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tin...
7 comments
Read more