In last week's post, I briefly spoke about my cinema card and my fav film. So, for this week's post, I thought why not delve into the world of film a bit more by going through my Letterboxd top 4 !! Letterboxd is a film tracking/reviewing app if you live under a rock. I'm SO passionate about film, I love analysing the stories the colours just EVERYTHING. I loved english literature in high school and even did it at A-Level, so engaging with stories on a deeper level is juts in my nature...I hope that doesn't sound pretentious. Lots of people say "sometimes the curtains were just blue", but the author's job is LITERALLY to add symbolism to stories to enhance them. Same way it's a cashier's job to scan your items. Before I dive into it, I wanna preface that I'm a HUGE animation lover. It genuinely breaks my hesrt to see people dismiss animation, especially in the live action remake epidemic we're going through right now. Animation isn't a precursor to live action, it is it's own medium with the same (if not more) merit as live action. Every single choice, every pen stroke is intentional. I'm going to go from bottom to top, ending with my number one favourite film OF ALL TIME. Now, without further ado, lets get into it.
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Honourable mention: Kiki's Delivery Service
I love this film so much. I first watched it as a kid, 9-10 years old maybe ? And ten years later, it still strikes a chord. It's about a young witch, Kiki, who must spend a year away from home in order to practice her witchcraft. The only thing is, she isn't particularly good at anything other than flying, unlike her mother who can make potions...so, like the title suggests, she becomes a delivery girl !! Every single character in this film is so relatable. Especially Kiki, who is thrown into a new environment, she doesn't really know who she is, or what she is for that matter. Yes, the story is about her journey with her craft, but it's also about her journey with herself, her emotions, and being alone in a new city. She struggles with jealousy, burnout, turbulent emotions, and is overall a really realistic depiction of a teenager in my opinion. I particularly love the scene where she goes to her friend Ursula's cabin in the woods, and she gives Kiki some advice in regard to burnout. I really like how Kiki was kinda shocked to find out that Ursula has been through something similar to her before. It shows that even the strongest, most admirable figures in your life have struggled too. The setting of the story is gorgeous, it's like a mismash of every seaside European town...it's very dreamy. The soundtrack is incredible, maybe one of my favourite Ghibli soundtracks (alongside Ponyo...can you tell I like the sea ?)
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Film 4: The Wind Rises
Okay, doesn't take a genius to figure out that I'm a Ghibli fan. In fact, this film lost the best animated feature oscar to frozen. FROZEN. And it STILL pisses me off to this day. Fuck you, idina menzel. Anyway. The best way to describe this film if you haven't seen it is that it's the Ghibli version of Oppenheimer. It's based on a true story and follows Jiro in WW2 era Japan. It's his lifelong dream to make airplanes, which he does achieve, but those planes go on to be used to carry bombs and bring destruction and death. Jiro also shares dreams with a man named Caproni, who also makes airplanes. When I say that they "share dreams", I mean literally. Like at night, they're in each others' dreams and can talk to each other. Caproni has some incredible quotes, which I can't remember off the top of my head...but just watch the film and you'll find out. We see Jiro's selfishness not only through how he continues his career as an aeronautical engineer despite the war, but also how he treats his wife. Not that he's abusive, in fact it's quite the opposite. It's quite hard to explain without spoiling, so if you haven't seen the film, SPOILERS !! As his wife is dying, he agrees to let her out of the hospital so that they can get married. This girl was quite literally on her death bed. On one hand, I think it's sweet. They got to live her final moments as a married couple and spend time together. On the other hand, her coming out of the hospital proved to be fatal, as she passes not long after. And, he didn't even get to spend that much time with her. He immediately returns to work, and there's even a scene of him continuing to sketch his bombers whilst in bed with her...it's quite nuanced, because like I said, it IS sweet, but on the other hand, it adds to his selfishness. The final scene is incredible, I won't spoil that tho. Okay, SPOILERS OVER !! The soundtrack for this film is really good, although a little repetitive. Maybe it's like, symbolic of how Jiro never changes.
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Film 3: Coraline
Would I even be an animation fan if I didn't mention this film at least once ? I mean, it's popular for a reason. I'm sure you know what Coraline is about, but if you don't, it's about a young girl (Coraline), who moves to a new house with her neglectful parents. And in this new house, she finds another world that looks exaclty like the one she lives in through a little door, but everything there is better. Her parents are kinder, the neighours less weird...the only downside is that, in this other world, everyone has buttons for eyes, and if she wants to stay there, she will have to have buttons sewn onto her eyes too....it's so perfectly creepy. Like Kiki's Delivery Service, it's been one of my favourites since I was a kid. With it being stop motion, every single detail was hand crafted with intention, yet still left so much room for theorising and interpretation. It's also FULL of symbolism, honestly if I got into it now, we'd be here for hours, and my wrists are kinda hurting...so just go watch the film, then watch a million video essays about it immediately after.
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Film 2: Look Back
I don't even know where to begin with this film. It's about two girls, Kyomoto and Fujino, who are drawn together by their love of drawing manga. Fujino writes manga for the school newspaper, but one day Kyomoto starts doing it too, and Fujino is a bit jealous, thinking that Kyomoto is better than her. But one day she meets Kyomoto, who is a total recluse, and Kyomoto tells Fujino that she really loves reading Fujino's work, and they become friends. It's by Tatsuki Fujimoto, author of chainsaw man, fire punch, goodbye eri...which are all also incredible. It made me kinda emotional, I've been such a big fan of Fujimoto for a long time, and he makes his love for film abundantly clear...so to sit down and watch HIS FILM...wow. It was adapted so faithfully too, the artstyle was literally 1:1. And the fact that their fames but together is his name...FUJIno and kyoMOTO. FUJIMOTO. I really loved the call backs to chainsaw man (like the door metaphor). There's a really beautiful scene, where Fujino is skipping down the road, splashing the rain with her eyes closed, then she starts running....something about it was so poignant. The friendship between the two girls was soso beautiful. PLEASE watch it !! It's also getting a live action adaptation soon...which, you know how I feel about live action adaptations, but like I said before. Fujimoto is a huge film nerd, you can't help but be happy for him. It's such a relatable story, especially if you also like to draw.
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Film 1: The Boy and the Heron
Again, I have so many feelings about this film I don't even know how to articulate them. It's about a boy named Mahito in WW2 Japan (sensing another theme here...), and when his mother is killed in a hospital fire, his dad starts dating his mother's SISTER and they move in with her. Mahito is obviously not happy about this...but at the end of the garden, there's a weird tower that's an eentrance to another world (sensing yet another theme...). He finds out the tower was built by his great grand uncle. So his grandparents uncle ?? I don't know. But a strange grey heron (voiced by robert pattinson, funnily enough) tells him that his mother is in there. So he goes in to this world and goes on a grand adventure through the past and stuff. Honestly, it's hard to explain. The original title (and Japanese title) is actually "How do you Live?" and NOT "The Boy and the Heron", which I think makes more sense. On the surface it just seems silly and whimsical, but really to me, it was a reflection on Miyazaki's whole career. LIke the scene where Mahito meets his great grand uncle, who keeps the world stable through a tower of shapes, stacked precariously on a table. But he knows the tower will fall soon, and asks Mahito to take his place, make a new tower and keep the peace. This is OBVIOUSLY showing his feelings towards his son, Goro- Miyazaki is the great grand uncle, Goro is Mahito, and the world they are in represents his film studio, how he wants to pass it on to Goro, but Goro makes mid movies....sorry Goro. It's a film about life. moving on, accepting what you can't change...and it won Miyazaki his first Oscar since Spirited Away !! This is justice for The Wind Rises. Frozen shall pay. Anyway, the cast is totally stacked. Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Willem Dafoe, Mark Hamill....this is supposedly Miyazaki's last film. Which he also said about The Wind Rises, and When Marnie was There, but this one really did feel like a send off, a goodbye to his career kinda...the Oscar was the bow on top, lol.
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Hope you enjoyed my pretentious rambling about my fav films. On another note, I really wanna change the layout of the blog, but idk how....Readymag looks like a better site to blog on, but it's also so confusing lol. I'm gonna mess around with it eventually, so stay tuned just in case the blog suddenly gets a facelift. Anyway, watch films, watch ANIMATED films, because they're just as good. Analyse them write about them, or just enjoy them, it's whatever. Support your local cinema, keep the industry alive.
See you whenever,
Cyberin