Tales from Earthsea
January 30th 2008 12:16
Has anybody seen Gedo Senki?
One of the latest Ghibli studios film directed by Hayao's Myazaki's son Goro?
I went to the Barbican (in London, where us lot get all the films like 2 million years after everyone else...snif snif) to watch it for the 2nd time last night, and to hear Helen McCarthy comments about it.
Online Ghibli link
Wiki link
Barbican link
This time round i found many more flows in the films, and the layers of cultural insights and references to some extended research McCarthy must have undertook, deeply helped to expand my opinions about the film.
I didnt like it more or less than before, but i appreciated it for different reasons (i.e: the gorgeous Ghibli backgrounds almost did not fit anymore, i felt as if Hayao had directed the 1st half and his son took over for the 2nd...It also seemed to me that Hayao was very clumsy when he tried to "copy" his dad's moral values (the farming happy lifestyle bit, the need for a balance concept)
When however his own style seemed more stretched towards darker, grimmer, more disturbed and horror like ideas, i loved his dragons fight, and the neurotic spooky bits where Arren wanders scared of his soul....
Anyway the Ghibli standards are not meant for me.
But i appreciate that for once we hear and see about drugs, depression, neurotic children missing overworked and distant father figures (a massive problem that has changed the face of family life in Japan for decades and with which consequences are only being dealt with now.) I mean the heavily high suicide rate amongst teenagers Japan reached in the 90s has led to major rethinking of educational values, and work ethics with the younger culture....
So Goro is trying to break the censorship usually surrounding "negative" issues in Japan..
i hope he'll do more gory stuff next time!!!!
But what did you think of it? I'd love to hear some different opinions about it....Debate is open...your turn
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