isao takahata day

Sunday was Isao Takahata Day at the Pacific Film Archive: My Neighbors the Yamadas, Pom Poko, and Grave of the Fireflies were all screened. I already think Grave of the Fireflies is the greatest animated feature of all time, while Yamadas and Pompoko are the only two animated features from Ghibli I had not yet seen. Now that my mental collection is complete, here are my thoughts on Isao Takahata.

My Neighbors the Yamadas

My Neighbors the Yamadas bears no resemblance to Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. Rather than concentrate on the wonder and innocence of children, or the nostalgia of old age, Yamadas is a sitcom about everyday Japanese suburbanites. It plays like highlights from King of the Hill. Miyazaki would never touch material like this, and it would be derided as not feature-length material by anyone in Hollywood, but Takahata makes it worthwhile.

Pom Poko

Glorious for all the Japanese traditions and playful manga humor it displays, this is very close to a classic. The story is classic Studio Ghibli: the struggle of nature, aided by magic, against the juggernaut of human progress. The main characters are cuddly raccoons, but with all the weaknesses, amusing quirks, and occasional wisdom of humans.

In plot and theme it is the Japanese version of Watership Down. But where that British film is depressingly realist in tone, red in tooth and claw, Pom Poko uses its animated medium to romanticize pre-modern times.

Pom Poko’s major shortcoming is untidy editing through the middle of the movie, with unnecessary sequences which make it seem longer than its under-two-hour length. But it picks up again at the end, with a final scene as powerful as any Miyazaki has done.

Takahata vs. Miyazaki

Despite what Disney would have you believe, Studio Ghibli is not a one-man show. Takahata complements Miyazaki. Miyazaki is of the Lucas-Spielberg school for boys who love fast vehicles, war, and damsels in distress, while Takahata is down-to-earth, ready to tackle the subtlety of Japanese society, the small joys and large worries of everyday life. They are both risk-takers: Miyazaki tackles projects of unprecedented scale and artistry, while Takahata breaks ground in his unusual treatments of more difficult material.

I’m tempted to compare them to the two most famous Japanese live action directors, Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke pays tribute to Kurosawa’s samurai movies, while Takahata’s Yamadas is practically an homage to Ozu’s Ohayo. But whereas Kurosawa also directed Ikiru, intruding into Ozu’s space, Miyazaki has never gone that far towards realism. In contrast Takahata has toyed with themes from both Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai in Pom Poko and Ozu’s Tokyo Story in films like Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday. Miyazaki, like Kurosawa, is a master of epic, but Takahata has more breadth and is more sophisticated.

But the animated film industry has never been about subtlety. Walt Disney saw to that with the runaway success of the flagrantly infantile Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Because of that studio, we expect animation to make up for its patent unreality with melodrama, mythic scale, and catchy music. Children don’t go for subtlety.

Yet feature animation can do more, and directors like Isao Takahata and Brad Bird give a hint as to its ultimate potential. The untimely death of Yoshifumi Kondo delayed the realization of that potential. Kondo was the heir apparent of Studio Ghibli, combining the strengths of both Takahata and Miyazaki in the one film he directed — my favorite Studio Ghibli movie — Whisper of the Heart. To appreciate the loss, watch Whisper and Cat Returns (its near-sequel) back-to-back. In fact, when Buena Vista releases the Yamadas and Pom Poko on DVD in August, why not try a Ghibli feature marathon?

I wish everybody would, because I’m gonna scream if I read one more review that says Howl’s Moving Castle is the best movie of all time.