| 1. | (7 posts) | Confronting Critics |
| 2. | (17 posts) | Labor Talks |
| 3. | (5 posts) | More "Alice" vs. "Sen" |
We looked at 93 posts by 45 different contributors.
Whoops! Forgot about the days of the week = long delay.
Chris Collette planned on sticking it to The Man, "Some of you may recall back when Mononoke was in U.S. theaters that there was a massive amount of critical acclaim received by movie critics. You may also recall there were a few exceptions, with one notably atrocious and unprofessional bash done by Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Daniel Neman. An excerpt of this piece of garbage has been archived on the nausicaa.net web site (http://nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/reviews7.html#Neman-RTD), and I still have a copy of the entire, unedited article in my possession. . . The teacher of my Newswriting class is a reporter for the Times-Dispatch, and he is going to bring in several of his coworkers throughout the semester for us to interview. I made an off-hand comment tonight about having some words with Mr. Neman, to which my teacher happily told me he will definitely be one of those coming to our class in the coming weeks. . . My journalistic instinct reminds me to remain mature and unbiased (something that seems to evade Mr. Neman himself), but another part of me really wants to tear into this guy."
Wisdom from Robin Casady, "It is important to calmly and intelligently illuminate the flaws in his work
without the appearance of malice.
Andrew Osmond wrote, "I grit my teeth at some Miyazaki-bashing reviews (only some!), but I wouldn't take this guy personally to task on the basis of this review alone. Having looked at the quotes, he's clearly seen the film and given his honest view - he even praises the background drawings. Let's face it, some people hate mythical fantasy (particularly when it's done straight) and find any animation below the Disney frame-rate cheap and ugly. I find Gaiman's dub dialogue hokey myself, and some Japanese- speaking friends tell me even Miyazaki's original script has lapses (though I hope not as many.)
The worst aspect of his review is the abuse Neman showers on anyone who _does_ like the film, but that - regrettably - is just following the tradition of many of the brasher, louder-mouthed reviewers who pepper their copy with gratuitous insults.
Chris replied, "I don't mind the fact he disliked the movie. What gets me are comments like "Roger Ebert gave it a hugely enthusiastic thumbs-up, and so did that overweight, red-headed guy who still lives with his parents and who reviewed it with him." I mean, what the hell. I'm not looking for an editorial on who Neman likes and who Neman hates, I want his thoughts on the movie. . . He seemed to use the column as an excuse to take unprovoked jabs at various people, and then his actual review is wholly inaccurate. I got the impression that while he did actually see more than just the theatrical trailer, he certainly wasn't paying any attention to it."
Most of the traffic this week sprang out of Hanno Mueller's detailed review of "Spirited Away". Since it (and the replies) contains spoilers for the film, I kept out of those messages. The thread (somehow) wandered into a discussion on labor, Julio Gea-Banacloche wrote, "You will find even more cogent examples, I think, in the short illustrated novel "Shuna's journey," which, interestingly, was done at a time when Miyazaki had not yet rejected Marxism (at least not openly). The story is full of work-related elements. . . The ending of the story--the relatively long last chapter, ``Thea''--is basically a parable of redemption through work, here the hard work of the soil, especially the small patch of earth that Thea practically carves out for herself and Shuna, and there is an almost mystical (which is, I think, where Miyazaki goes beyond mere Marxism) element to it, in the closeness to the natural world, the living of the seasons."
Michael Wojcik replied, "I had looked at the brief nausicaa.net description of "Shuna's Journey" before, but hadn't read either of the fan translations it links to. I've bookmarked one now - it looks like it'll be pretty easy to follow even without the illustrations. . . I see that this connects to what Hanno Mueller (in his recent review of _Sen_) called our attention to: the "kirei moments" when Miyazaki protagonists pause to note the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I think Miyazaki is calling for a combination of the kind of intellectual awareness and discipline associated with "good" labor, on the one hand, and that sense of wonder on the other.
And for Miyazaki that wonder, while it is as you say to a large extent mystical (we could also use the word "numinous", following Richard Adams - see my post from last August), is also grounded in the material world of nature. It's not an abstract concept. That straddling of the physical world and a sort of magic inherent in it probably owes something to Shinto (and possibly pre-Yamato indigenous animistic beliefs).
Julio added, "It's a very strange book, though; perhaps the strangest thing Miyazaki has ever done (aside from Sen, which sounds pretty strange too, from the way everybody talks about it). What I mentioned yesterday was just the beginning and the end, which are pretty straightforward. The middle, however, is an eerie, dreamlike journey which slowly turns into a nightmare, and leaves you wondering just what it all was supposed to mean (if anything)."
Marc Gregory posted tips on finding the book.
Debate over the "Alice in Wonderland" comparison that is frequently used with "Spirited Away" continued this week. Mike Arnold wrote, "After watching "Sen" I skimmed through the text of _Alice in Wonderland_ and re-watched the Disney film twice, and I saw some evidence that Miyazaki's story does indeed take a lot of inspiration from Alice, probably including the Disney version. In fact some of the comparisons are a bit eerily close, noting rumors of Carroll's "attraction" to little girls and criticisms of the same thing in Miyazaki's work. . . Along with a few other things others have noted (Miyazawa Kenji...), I think Alice in Wonderland is one of several resources we need to look at when examining "Sen.""
Steven Underwood replied, "The core reason I think a comparison with Alice is tenuous at best is there is never any sense of menace in Alice. There is a lot of the most extreme violence ("off with his head" and so on), and yet a complete abscence of menace. When you consider the framework of the story this is hardly suprising - you know from page one that it will turn out OK in the end. Sen isn't like that. You expect from the start that it will have a positive ending, such large scale colateral damage is a real possibility."
Michael Wojcik added, "while there probably are some similarities in plot and image (we already know Miyazaki likes Tenniel's illustrations), there's a complete disparity in tone.
Of course, Mike's still right that if some elements of _Sen_ are influenced by elements of _Alice_, however different they may be in the whole, it's a connection worth paying attention to. My impression is just that some people make too easy an association that doesn't hold up in general.
""" Hanno Mueller posted several translated articles, visit the "Spirited Away" Impressions page for a read. Joe Curzon noted that the European theatrical rights for "Spirited Away" were sold to various companies. Knut Brockmann posted his impressions of the Berlin International Film Festival.
I'll try not to forget the days of the week.