Review: Gedo Senki (Miyazaki Goro)
Jul. 13th, 2007 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebroadweShort take (no spoilers): Lovely to look at, but ...
Long take (spoilers ho!): Oh, what could have been ...
I still have the emails in which I huzzahed at everyone who had the least clue what I was talking about that Studio Ghibli would be doing an Earthsea film. Even after I read the reviews giving it only qualified praise, I decided that, rather than wait till the licensing agreements permitted an R1 release, I'd import an R2 DVD and see for myself whether the production had managed to evoke Le Guin's vision of life and death: "Bright the hawk's flight / On the empty sky." I don't feel I've wasted my money, but Gedo Senki is clearly the first effort of a reasonably talented creative mind working with an established animation juggernaut. It lacks subtlety and falls flat at the end, but it does present sympathetic heroes in conflict with hissable villains in a beautifully rendered landscape. I was entertained, but like those other reviewers, I must qualify my praise.
First off, this is a Ghibli film, no matter who's directing, so it looks gorgeous: the skies (I love Ghibli skies, especially the long light of evening and early morning in the clouds); the sets (the Byzantine splendor of Enlad and the cozy domesticity of Tenar's farm; the clean expanse of the marshes and the seen-better-days tawdriness of Hort Town -- oh, it's all a treat for the eyes); the character designs (typical Ghibli faces, but nicely expressive and well-differentiated one from another); the choreography (Arren's fight scenes are splendid); and the attention to detail (everything from the loving depiction of architectural widgetry to not forgetting that Therru has shredded her wrists getting loose from her bonds). The eye is not permitted to overwhelm the ear, however: the voicework is professional-grade, of course (there's some excellent chemistry between Sugawara Bunta's Ged and Fubuki Jun's Tenar); the music appropriate if not inspired; and the sound effects nicely evocative (again, it's the attention to detail in matters like the scrape of the sword's hilt over stone when Therru makes her way along the parapet that have me nodding approval). My reservations all have to do with the plotting. I've been a fan of Le Guin's initial three Earthsea books since childhood, but I am not a text purist -- by the end of the introduction I knew that this was going to be an interpretation of The Farthest Shore, not an adaptation, and had settled down with my popcorn to see what Miyazaki Goro would make of his source. I found much to entertain me and had no trouble following the various turns of events, but I was conscious of a certain laxness of construction that weakened the transitions between scenes and, most particularly, the climax.
The narrative suffers from young-storyteller's syndrome -- the plot tends to jerk the characters around, rather than providing plausible motivations for them. Cob, for instance, is made to fall prey to Evil Overlord-style overconfidence, sparing both Ged and Arren to give Therru time to ride to the rescue. The imagery is also occasionally labored: Cob's castle screams "Bad guy lives here!"; every significant moment takes place at sunset save the climax, which occurs at dawn; and a story about a divided self makes sure to have its characters walk around on mirror-polished floors. I get it, I get it! :-) And there are signs that either the writer or the director (or both) has not always thought his conceptions through -- for example, Arren resolves to return home and face justice for his crime, but asks Therru if he may return to visit her. Um, gentlemen? He's a regicide in a premodern society. Chances of him not getting the death penalty?
But the story seems to be very confused about how to interpret Arren's act of patricide. In the introduction, it's presented as motiveless and inexplicable, the ultimate embodiment of the apocalyptic loss of Balance the world is experiencing, but as the reviewer at Anime News Network has pointed out, the story dispenses with that perspective on the problem thereafter to enact a domestic drama. Everything constricts: once we arrive in Hort Town, we never get out past the suburbs (despite the promise of Lookfar; I'm sorry we don't see more of Ged the sailor) and Arren's redemption becomes an end in itself, rather than the linchpin of a cosmic realignment. This renders the introduction oddly out of key -- Arren's growth in self-understanding is so mundane that it demands a more psychologically realistic front end. I found myself mentally rewriting the teaser to place Arren in the council chamber, arguing with his father, so that their conflict could continue in the corridor and get out of hand, making the killing a terrible half-accident. Or else I found myself trying to rewrite parts of the middle and the conclusion to make it clear that Cob is tampering with the Balance and needs to be stopped.
Then again, having caught some of the interviews with Miyazaki Goro about his relationship with his father, I find it difficult not to read this entire film as an Oedipal psychodrama -- and that certainly makes sense out of some of the narrative choices. The climax, for example, falls very flat once Cob's pseudopower over death has been revealed. After Arren's apotheosis in the drawing of the sword and Cob's initial defeat, the plot trails off into a long chase scene which ends with Therru's narratively inexplicable metamorphosis into a dragon and Cob's banal death. The film really does cry out for a moment like the one at the end of The Farthest Shore, where Ged confronts Cob at the border between life and death and seals the rent his deluded colleague has torn between them. That's wizards' work, just as preserving everyone's bodily safety is prince's work. (It would also have tied the end to the issues raised in the introduction.) Pushing Ged aside in favor of an all-about-Arren conclusion is a failure of art, but giving Ged a more prominent or proactive role would have acknowledged the power of a father-figure, which this film seems determined not to do. Fathers are either competent and cold; treacherous and falsely affectionate; or loving but ultimately helpless. I'll leave it to someone more versed in the theory than I to do a full Freudian reading of Gedo Senki (Arren kills his father and steals his sword? Oh, dear ... ), but I do wish the biographical element were not so easy to invoke. Le Guin's work itself is pretty overtly Jungian, after all, but the film makes only the smallest nod to that in Arren's flight from his shadow.
In sum, then, I find that a lack of fundamental structural coherence drags Gedo Senki down from the heights its technical excellence achieves. Yet it's still an entertaining movie, if only for its visual delights, and well worth a look from anyone who enjoys heroic fantasy. (Then go out and read A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, if you haven't already. You are unlikely to regret it.)
Long take (spoilers ho!): Oh, what could have been ...
I still have the emails in which I huzzahed at everyone who had the least clue what I was talking about that Studio Ghibli would be doing an Earthsea film. Even after I read the reviews giving it only qualified praise, I decided that, rather than wait till the licensing agreements permitted an R1 release, I'd import an R2 DVD and see for myself whether the production had managed to evoke Le Guin's vision of life and death: "Bright the hawk's flight / On the empty sky." I don't feel I've wasted my money, but Gedo Senki is clearly the first effort of a reasonably talented creative mind working with an established animation juggernaut. It lacks subtlety and falls flat at the end, but it does present sympathetic heroes in conflict with hissable villains in a beautifully rendered landscape. I was entertained, but like those other reviewers, I must qualify my praise.
First off, this is a Ghibli film, no matter who's directing, so it looks gorgeous: the skies (I love Ghibli skies, especially the long light of evening and early morning in the clouds); the sets (the Byzantine splendor of Enlad and the cozy domesticity of Tenar's farm; the clean expanse of the marshes and the seen-better-days tawdriness of Hort Town -- oh, it's all a treat for the eyes); the character designs (typical Ghibli faces, but nicely expressive and well-differentiated one from another); the choreography (Arren's fight scenes are splendid); and the attention to detail (everything from the loving depiction of architectural widgetry to not forgetting that Therru has shredded her wrists getting loose from her bonds). The eye is not permitted to overwhelm the ear, however: the voicework is professional-grade, of course (there's some excellent chemistry between Sugawara Bunta's Ged and Fubuki Jun's Tenar); the music appropriate if not inspired; and the sound effects nicely evocative (again, it's the attention to detail in matters like the scrape of the sword's hilt over stone when Therru makes her way along the parapet that have me nodding approval). My reservations all have to do with the plotting. I've been a fan of Le Guin's initial three Earthsea books since childhood, but I am not a text purist -- by the end of the introduction I knew that this was going to be an interpretation of The Farthest Shore, not an adaptation, and had settled down with my popcorn to see what Miyazaki Goro would make of his source. I found much to entertain me and had no trouble following the various turns of events, but I was conscious of a certain laxness of construction that weakened the transitions between scenes and, most particularly, the climax.
The narrative suffers from young-storyteller's syndrome -- the plot tends to jerk the characters around, rather than providing plausible motivations for them. Cob, for instance, is made to fall prey to Evil Overlord-style overconfidence, sparing both Ged and Arren to give Therru time to ride to the rescue. The imagery is also occasionally labored: Cob's castle screams "Bad guy lives here!"; every significant moment takes place at sunset save the climax, which occurs at dawn; and a story about a divided self makes sure to have its characters walk around on mirror-polished floors. I get it, I get it! :-) And there are signs that either the writer or the director (or both) has not always thought his conceptions through -- for example, Arren resolves to return home and face justice for his crime, but asks Therru if he may return to visit her. Um, gentlemen? He's a regicide in a premodern society. Chances of him not getting the death penalty?
But the story seems to be very confused about how to interpret Arren's act of patricide. In the introduction, it's presented as motiveless and inexplicable, the ultimate embodiment of the apocalyptic loss of Balance the world is experiencing, but as the reviewer at Anime News Network has pointed out, the story dispenses with that perspective on the problem thereafter to enact a domestic drama. Everything constricts: once we arrive in Hort Town, we never get out past the suburbs (despite the promise of Lookfar; I'm sorry we don't see more of Ged the sailor) and Arren's redemption becomes an end in itself, rather than the linchpin of a cosmic realignment. This renders the introduction oddly out of key -- Arren's growth in self-understanding is so mundane that it demands a more psychologically realistic front end. I found myself mentally rewriting the teaser to place Arren in the council chamber, arguing with his father, so that their conflict could continue in the corridor and get out of hand, making the killing a terrible half-accident. Or else I found myself trying to rewrite parts of the middle and the conclusion to make it clear that Cob is tampering with the Balance and needs to be stopped.
Then again, having caught some of the interviews with Miyazaki Goro about his relationship with his father, I find it difficult not to read this entire film as an Oedipal psychodrama -- and that certainly makes sense out of some of the narrative choices. The climax, for example, falls very flat once Cob's pseudopower over death has been revealed. After Arren's apotheosis in the drawing of the sword and Cob's initial defeat, the plot trails off into a long chase scene which ends with Therru's narratively inexplicable metamorphosis into a dragon and Cob's banal death. The film really does cry out for a moment like the one at the end of The Farthest Shore, where Ged confronts Cob at the border between life and death and seals the rent his deluded colleague has torn between them. That's wizards' work, just as preserving everyone's bodily safety is prince's work. (It would also have tied the end to the issues raised in the introduction.) Pushing Ged aside in favor of an all-about-Arren conclusion is a failure of art, but giving Ged a more prominent or proactive role would have acknowledged the power of a father-figure, which this film seems determined not to do. Fathers are either competent and cold; treacherous and falsely affectionate; or loving but ultimately helpless. I'll leave it to someone more versed in the theory than I to do a full Freudian reading of Gedo Senki (Arren kills his father and steals his sword? Oh, dear ... ), but I do wish the biographical element were not so easy to invoke. Le Guin's work itself is pretty overtly Jungian, after all, but the film makes only the smallest nod to that in Arren's flight from his shadow.
In sum, then, I find that a lack of fundamental structural coherence drags Gedo Senki down from the heights its technical excellence achieves. Yet it's still an entertaining movie, if only for its visual delights, and well worth a look from anyone who enjoys heroic fantasy. (Then go out and read A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, if you haven't already. You are unlikely to regret it.)