Yeah I can't explain what hit me this month but I wanted to watch some Studio Ghibli documentaries. Taking place in late 2012 this documentary focuses on Miyazaki taking up the production for The Wind Rises, a film I haven't seen yet but hopefully there will be time in the future to do so, while also showcasing a bit of history for the studio, a concurrent release for The Tale Of Princess Kaguya (also a film I haven't seen), and the tantum work of the animators. It's a leisurely paced documentary clocking in at 2 hours but if animation is your bag and even more so seeing how animation is made, it's worth watching! It's not entirely the main focus, it centers on Miyazaki and longtime business partner Toshio Suzuki working on the art side of the studio and the business side of the studio respectively just keeping up with the tasks at hand. That's kind of the beauty of a documentary there's no real drama or story to it, you can just view it and catch a glimpse of another time, another place, another life and some may say it's boring but it all comes down to what are you looking for. I just wanted to see the behind the scenes stuff at Studio Ghibli and witness Miyazaki in his element, and I got that but I also got more. I got some truly superb instances of cinematography, a beautiful score, a true sense of community and hard work from the talented as hell animators, and even some insight into Miyazaki's past during war time. The Wind Rises is all about a young man with a great love of airplanes who is conscripted to design a new fighter plane for the second world war, and that's not only a conflicted story but also a conflicted movie to make from a japanese point of view that's endlessly fascinating to see, and on top of all of that whether the influence of the Fukushima disaster that occured just a year before this documentary takes place had any conscious or unconscious effect on the story bears some insight from far more intelligent minds than my own. And just as the cherry on top of all of that hearing Miyazaki himself say this was the only film of his he cried at is kind of a testament to art in any medium and how deeply you can get attached to something even if you're the one who made it. I was sold already on seeing the movie but it's bumped up a bit on the Ghibli watchlist at this point. Hell seeing the animation team having an emotional breakdown finally seeing all that hard work up on the big screen got me in an emotional tizzy like you wouldn't believe, and further hammers that nail that is already embedded in the coffin of the fact that animation is a gruelling industry and that you have to have patience and love for what you do if you are in that field. Even somewhat innocuous details like Miyazaki's daily routine or peppered footage throughout of basically the studio's office cat doing cat stuff has great charm and certainly held my interest, but then again I'm the biggest goddamn mark for a cat you will ever meet in your life so I'm an easy sell. I don't know if it's just the cadence or the overall sort of style for lack of a better term about how people from Japan talk but it does something for me, there's actually quite a few lines from Miyazaki that struck me even in small ways, I mean Japan has had an indelible impression on my life since I was very very young but the appeal has never waned even after all this time. I very much enjoyed this brief look into a much loved studio that deserves the accolades it has, and I give it 3 stars, 8/10! And I'll see you tomorrow friends.
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