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R2 DVD Reviews
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Friday, 04 December 2009 00:00 |
 I confess, I'm way behind on watching the Ghibli 'classics', an error I'm going to start rectifying. First up is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, one of Hayao Miyazaki's earlier works that has a decidedly environmental bent. Young girl Nausicaä is princess in one of the few habitable areas left on Earth - an area that may not be habitable for much longer...
1,000 years ago, the Seven Days of Fire left the Earth's ecosystem ruined, with only small communities of humans left surviving - and even they are being slowly swallowed up by the Sea of Decay, a lethally toxic and dangerous jungle that is slowly engulfing the world. One of the surviving communities is the Valley of the Wind, a peaceful village that young princess Nausicaä calls home. Nausicaä has an unusual ability to communicate with wild creatures, especially some of the giant creatures who live in the Sea of Decay, an ability that she's been using - along with good old scientific research - to see if there's a way that can be found to allow humans to deal with the toxins present there. But Nausicaä's peaceful days come to an end when a giant airship carrying a deadly relic from the past crash-lands in the Valley of the Wind, heralding the valley's invasion...
The airship's arrival drags the Valley of the Wind and its inhabitants into the war between the nearby kingdoms of Tolmekia and Pejite. The Pejitans have possession of a Giant Warrior, a relic from before the Seven Days of Fire that, if awakened, would have the power to raze the Sea of Decay from the Earth and restore humanity's "golden age". The Pejitans, though, are cautious enough to leave the Warrior as a relic - the Tolmekians, meanwhile, have the urge to awaken it, and the war between them over the fate of the Warrior has left both nations on the edge of collapse.
Where other nations have been using technology to hold back the Sea of Decay, though, Nausicaä's people have a far simpler approach - apart from the lands they need to grow their crops on & keep themselves alive, they live with the Sea of Decay, learning its secrets and how to live in harmony with it. The Sea has a secret, you see - slowly but surely it's purifying the Earth of the toxins it carries, a process that will take an age to complete but that will lead to a reborn world. So essentially, the movie comes down to the slow, natural recovery advocated by the Valley of the Wind, and the quicker, technology-driven approach that the Tolmekians want to take. Any of this sound familiar yet..?
For all that there's a clear environmental message to the movie - that the natural way is always best - it never comes across as preaching, though. There's a story built around a moral tale, yes, but those morals aren't pushed upon you any more than is necessary to tell the tale.
And what a tale it is. For all that it revolves around a few key characters, the battles played out are truly epic in scale, with the whole experience helped along by the way that those key characters are all well-developed and easy to connect to. Nausicaä is an idealist, looking for the good in everyone and every situation, but smart enough to realise when she needs to step in and take control of a situation - she's to be a leader one day, and she possesses the required qualities in spades. Travelling warrior Lord Yupa is in many ways her mentor - not in fighting, but in how to deal with life - and his insights are always useful to her.
On the other side of the battle are the Tolmekians, led by Kushana - a princess of Tolmekia and a woman driven by her dream to see the Giant Warrior awakened and the world restored - and her rather shifty sidekick Kurotawa, who you never feel can be completely trusted. Kushana's plans is in many ways the epitome of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons - it's not wrong to want to see the world returned to a more habitable state, but her willingness to sacrifice others in the process is where it all goes a bit wrong.
Caught in the middle are the Pejitans, a people whose nation is already all but destroyed. The survivors are led by Asbel, a prince of Pejite who has been drawn into a plan that will see Tolmekia destroyed in vengeance - and the Valley of the Wind destroyed by way of collateral damage, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Asbel eventually sees the error of his ways after meeting Nausicaä, but by that time plans are in full motion and it proves difficult for anyone to stop them - which is where Nausicaä and this little thing called "destiny" come into play.
The movie is the best part of two hours long, and is paced rather slowly, although not in such a way that you're ever allowed to lose interest in what's happening on-screen. Instead, it's time that's spent adding lots of little details to the setting and characters, the sort of work that makes Miyazaki works stand out above the rest of the anime field. Even the creatures of the Sea of Decay get given 'personalities' - when the Ohma, giant creatures that are the guardians of the Sea, stampede towards the end of the movie, the reasons behind it mean you have as much sympathy for them as you do for the helpless villagers who stand in their path.
The end result is a work that's really hard to pick holes in. I couldn't quite manage to give it five stars - as much as I love it, I can see the time spent developing the setting and characters getting in the way of the fun of battle for some - but really, this is a movie that every anime fan should at least see, if not own. Go get.
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