Princess Mononoke (1997)

Studio Ghibli is to Japan what Pixar is to the UK and the USA. In fact it’s bigger than that. In my opinion it’s better too. While I love the lush, textured look of the best CGI films (I’m not denying for a moment that Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Up, Wall-E and a load of others aren’t amazing), seeing hand-drawn animation with beautiful, oil-painting backgrounds moving with gorgeous fluidity and grace is a pleasure. Whether watching Studio Ghibli’s films “dubbed” or “subbed” (most of the DVDs offer you dubbed versions, often with well-known “Western” actors, or subtitled (which is preferable if you value the original emotion and intonation of the words)), I’d be surprised if you don’t find yourself wondering just how many hours went into the production of these moving works of art. If the look wasn’t enough, the stories are always excellent, shying away from the usual nooks that cartoons inhabit. 

The “Spielberg” of Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki who has recently retired, leaving his swansong, “The Wind Rises” largely ignored in the cinemas. Smart parents will let their kids enjoy Miyazaki’s films and decide for themselves whether Buzz Lightyear outranks Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro). Many Ghibli films deal with subjects that US studios avoid, such as death (Graveyard of the Fireflies). Some barely have a story – My Neighbour Totoro has no “bad guy”, no real jeopardy and no great moral. Yet kids and adults LOVE it. Try it for yourself. Bet you like it.

Princess Mononoke has a few threads to its story. Our “hero”, Ashitaka is cursed by a rampaging Boar-God (stick with me – the Japanese “gods” stuff provides for epic imagery, even to a noisy atheist like me) and ostracised by his community, left to search for a cure for his apparently incurable curse. Cutting off his top-knot, Ashitaka sets off alone. Soon, he finds himself embroiled in a battle between a human settlement who are using the forest’s resources to power their iron mining industry and the creatures of the forest, led by San, a warrior girl.

I won’t give away any more of the plot, other than to say you’ll see powerful gods, vengeful creatures, determined men and women of Tatara (the Iron Town) and skilled warriors weave a story that’ll engage from the start until the final seconds.

At times you’ll forget what artistry went into Princess Mononoke, such is the ease of absorption into the narrative. Then you’ll notice the sheer detail level drawn, frame-by-frame and for a moment it’s easy to understand why a 2D cartoon can pull you into a magical world so naturally. Hayao Miyazaki, the director, draws tens of thousands of the frames himself, working alongside the Studio Ghibli team whose work has influenced many many movie-makers

On the dubbed version you’ll be hard-pushed to recognise the voices of Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, Claire Danes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Gillian Anderson and others, but they’re there. Imagine a film with such an astronomical cast of stars being as under-known as this if it were a Disney cartoon.

See the trailer here:

By Steve Fair - 2014

Patton (1970)

George C Scott famously refused to attend the Academy Awards, saying that every great dramatic performance was unique and couldn’t be compared to another. To quote him later though, he went for the less measured, “The whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don’t want any part of it”. His portrayal of General George S. Patton in this remarkable film is indeed hard to compare to other performances. The film’s seven Academy Awards tell us however that when a comparison was attempted, it was favourable. Very favourable.

Since Patton’s 1970 release, the opening monologue delivered in front of the stars and stripes, has been a defining moment in military film-making. More impactful than any amount of not being able to “handle the truth”, Scott delivers rhetoric designed to motivate his troops. He motivates us too, to discover who – what -  he is and how his plans and intentions will play out. Is he a madman? Or a single-minded military genius? Patton takes us through the career of George S. Patton, focusing on World War 2 and his campaigns that took on Rommel, the German army and sometimes his own superiors.

It’s said that half of the film’s budget was spent on buying former Spanish military vehicles. If that’s true, it shows. Real explosions, crashes and bombing raids seem to be in endless supply, adding a layer of grit and realism that CGI just can’t achieve yet. Watch as Patton directs two vehicular units through a muddy bottleneck – these are actual tanks and trucks struggling through thick mud. Look closely and you’ll see a soldier standing on the side of a vehicle narrowly avoid being crushed by a swinging tank turret. He breathes in and dodges it by centimetres. 

Patton is a perfectly-paced film. It never bores, but manages to impart detail levels that mean you feel involved and informed. There’s one transition that seemed odd, as Patton decides to go to Sicily. The sets involved are very similar and my wife and I turned to each other, saying ”Oh! He’s in Sicily now!”. A second viewing would remove this confusion but notably, it’s the only moment when I didn’t feel powerfully aware of the geography.

The film is based on the memoirs of General Omar N Bradley, who served alongside  General Patton. Bradley is superbly depicted by Karl Malden. In the film, they’re depicted as friends, though in reality the two didn’t get along. We are left to trust the representation of each of them as realistic and their dynamic is a believable one that regularly helps to drive the plot forward.

I’m no buff on the finer technical aspects of movie-making, but I can recognise great photography when it is as obvious as in Patton. Avoiding the usual military clichés, the visuals are stunningly shot. My LED TV made some of the blood look a little too red (I have my settings on the recommendations found on AV Forum to closely match the colour mix from the majority of movies), but it’s not something you’ll be distracted by. The battlefield shots are grand, yet compact (my mental image of huge battlefields is almost always too vast and the intimacy of infantry-based warfare was often played out in relatively small valleys, fields or of course, beaches), the action sequences suggest real jeopardy and the dialogue-heavy sections are involving and clear. 

The final third of the film slows a little as Patton’s fate unfolds before him but never bores, never becomes a slog. I often say that the greatest mob movie is “A Bronx Tale”, which contains far fewer mob scenes than “Goodfellas” or “The Godfather”, but which leaves the viewer more aware of the mob’s impact on the world around it. Patton isn’t anything like “The Dirty Dozen”, “Saving Private Ryan” or “Platoon” in that it is about one man’s effect on a war, and the war’s effect on him. To that end, it’s almost redundant to compare it (and the performances within) to anything you might imagine to be similar. Perhaps George was right.

See the trailer:

  

By Steve Fair, 2014