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There are many movie titles that come to people's mind when you mention Hayao Miyazaki's work, like Castle in the Sky -first Studio Ghibli movie-; My Neighbor Totoro; Princess Mononoke; Spirited Away; Howl's Moving Castle, and so on, but there's one movie -pre-Studio Ghibli-, that was the beginning of everything.
Title: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japanese: 風の谷のナウシカ).
Based on: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki.
Production company: Topcraft.
Music: Joe Hisaishi.
Lenguaje: Japanese.
Running time: 117 minutes.
Year: 1984.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was the first movie directed by Miyazaki with Isao Takahata as executive producer. They both chose Topcraft as the production studio and led the whole process of the film. Team work wich later lead to the creation of their own studio, Studio Ghibli, and the premiere of their first film Castle in the Sky (1986), also directed by Miyazaki and produced by Takahata.
Studio Ghibli has produced more than twenty animated films in thirty four years, most of wich have had international success, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was a preamble for the studio.
Yesterday, I watched this film, long overdue, with my boyfriend on Netflix. I most say, I was eager to watch it and I was happly surprised by it.
Story
The movie begins with a man exploring what it seems to be a pretty devastated town due to some heavy spores in the envoirment. Later, after a nice intro, we see a pilot, on some kind of hang-glider, flying over a lake and landing on a desert. The pilot enters into a forest-jungle inhabited by large insects and plants with what it seems to be toxic spores.
The pilot results to be a young woman, Nausicaä, and she explores the jungle and communicates with its creatures. Soon, she hears a gunfire from outside, and she notices that a man -the same we saw at the beginning-, is running from a gigantic, trilobite-like armored «Ohmu», and she helped him by soothing the beast.
Later we found out that humanityt had survived a thousand years since an apocalyptic war took place, that destroyed civilization and created the vast Toxic Jungle with giant mutant insects.
In the kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, we discover that Nausicaä is the princess and that the man we saw earlier is Yupa, a friend of her family.
Things get complicated when an aircraft from the Tolmekian kingdom crashes into the Valley of the Wind. Princess Lastelle of Pejite, the only survivor of the wreckage, asks Nausicaä to destroy the ship's cargo, and then she dies. Then, one of the insects that attacked the ship, appears wounded and it's ready to attack the villagers, but Nausicaä uses a bullroarer to calm it down and she guides it away from the village in a beautiful scene.
The cargo is what is left of a Giant Warrior, one of the bioweapons that caused the Seven Days of Fire, the horric war that endeded with a large part of mankind. Princess Latelles and the embryo of the giant were taken prisoners by the Tolmekians, who wanted to use the embryo for their benefit.
Soon after the crash, Tolmekian troops, alongside by armoured Princess Kushana, take down the Valley, kill Nausicaä's father and capture the Giant Warrior's embryo.
This unravels a great conflict between the Valley of the Wind, the Tolmekian, the Pejite and the insects of the Toxic Jungle, that made the wind stop, and that will be settled down by Nausicaä's efforts and sacrifice, with the help of her friends and allies.
With pure water and soil, the plants from the Sea of Decay are not poisonous. The pollution lies in the earth itself. Even the earth of our valley. Who made such a terrible mess of the world? - Nausicaä.
Music
The music composed by Joe Hisaishi, espeacilly for this film, is simple brilliant. The score suits perfectly the intensity in batlle and actions scenes, and the softness in emotional and introspective scenes. Even, in some parts, it has an synth-pop vibe to it, so distinctive from the eighties.
References
The film of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was inspired by the manga of the same name created by Hayao Miyazaki, wich was inspired by the works of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, among others; and it also represents Miyazaki's love for aircraft and nature.
Strengths
- Beutiful cinematography and art direction.
- Detailed animation.
- Story and character desing filled with originality and creativity.
- Compelling narrative, with a strong female protagonist that's going to do what ever it takes to save nature and to bring peace between insects and mankind.
- It has elements that we are going to see throught Ghibli's filmography: war, destruction, environment, nature, mandkind, solidarity, emphaty, community, hope, fantasy, prophecy, sci-fi and aircraft.
- Amazing score.
Flaws
- There are some minimal script issues, like when Nausicaä holds the Ohm eye's material, and the object disappear from the frame, and comes back again with no explanation.
- How Asbel and Nausicaä survived the fall in the forest without getting hurt or even getting weat?
- How Nausicaä and the baby Ohm survived the stampede of a large number of Ohms while being hurt?
- There's no real «antagonist» in the film, besides the stupidity of mankind. We are presented with the figure of the armoured princees and her counselor, but nothing really comes out of it.
Final comment
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a beautifully made anime film, with a great story of a brave young woman, that had been part of the official Studio Ghibli collection for years. I encourege all Ghibli's fans, and all of you who haven't watch it yet, to check it out. It will be worth it.
The pictures used in this post are screen captures that I made from the streaming of the movie on Netflix.
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Thank you for reading! This is my first public anime review! I hope you enjoyed the content.
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