Movies

The Ghibli Theater Watch: Whisper of the Heart

Damn you, world, for taking away Yoshifumi Kondo too early.

Kondo was the man who would have taken Miyazaki and Takahata’s place as their successor, had he not passed away in 1998. Whisper of the Heart remains the only full-length work he directed, though he worked on some other Ghibli films. It is also one of the few non-fantasy Ghibli films, and a great gateway film for people who are not fans of outré stories.

I am a little sceptical of the script, however. The library card subplot segues too easily into the curious case of the subway-hopping cat. Shizuku meeting Seiji-kun the way she does makes the cynic in me want to poke my finger at those points of the script and laugh in derision. I also have a mild reaction towards the last few lines of the film, during the sunrise – while I get the spirit in which they appear, it’s not as serious as it should have been. Meh, I am being obtuse, I know. I’m sorry. (I learnt just now that the American release did not have the words that bother me in them. That means I am not the only one thinking that way.)

The remarkable use of ‘Country Roads’ – or ‘Concrete Roads’, if you prefer that version. Those fuzzy-warm little moments involving the song. Like the scene where Shizuku shows Yuki the first draft of the lyrics and both of them hum the somewhat-clunky rhymes together. The apology scene by the three friends, where the offended poet throws her nose up in the air until they beg Shizuku-sama’s forgiveness. And of course, the jam sequence always has me grinning madly and bobbing my  head along to Seiji’s violin-playing. Yuji Nomi composed just two Ghibli soundtracks, and the one for Whisper of the Heart is magnificent!

My favorite character in the film is not who you would expect – it’s Shizuku’s dad. He works as a librarian, and apparently keeps an eye on his daughter’s reading habits. “Strange to see Shizuku reading non-fiction”, he remarks, when she pores through reference books when writing her story. Quick to take control when his daughters argue, and does so without raising his voice. The hasty puff of the cigarette when his wife complains at him lighting up at the table. And of course, his consensual support of her two-month trial. Most Miyazaki dads are awesome – and Mr Tsukishima is one of the best.

Muta the cat (or Moon, if you prefer) is the epitome of feline airiness, and is probably my second-favorite character.

I like the way there are multiple love stories going on in the film – most of them unrequited. Yuki and the guy who wrote her the letter, Yuki and Sugimura, Sugimura and Shizuku, the Dwarf King and the Goat who turns into a princess, Shizuku and Seiji, the Baron and Louise, Nishi and Eloisa. There’s also Shiho and the mysterious person she writes letters to.

All in all, Whisper of the Heart brings a lump to my throat every time I see it. There’s a very strong feeling of nostalgia it evokes in me. The scenes at the library. The winding and hilly roads the characters cycle through. The school scenes. Rain. Studying for exams. The sound of crickets on a warm summer day. And most of all, the thought that sometimes, some stories begin in the most unexpected ways, in ways you could never imagine.

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Movies

The Ghibli Theater Watch: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

My biggest problem with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is that I find the eponymous lead character too one-dimensional. What we know about her is spelt out in the first 30 minutes of the film – a kind-hearted princess, explorer of the Sea of Decay, someone who knows the ways of the strange creatures that inhabit it. After that, other than one throwaway line about anger management, we get nothing. But that I guess is the burden of the Miyazaki heroine – an adolescent that is forever asexual, virtuous to the point of saccharine-sweetness, and dripping with innocence.

The only thing that has dated about this 28-year old film is the score. Don’t get me wrong, Joe Hisaishi’s work is still miles ahead of any animated film soundtrack of that vintage, especially the main piano theme and the vocal leitmotif for the Fields of Gold sequence. The seams show up with the rather ham-fisted Ohmu tracks, where sitar and santoor strains meant to evoke mysticism and awe come off as as pidgin New Age. And the cheesy drums in the action sequences scream of eighties disco.

The film is also surprisingly humorless. Unintended moments of mirth trickle out in some of the voice acting, but the only comic relief is provided by the occasional sardonic quip made by Kurotawa, the general of Tolmekia. There is a out-of-place sequence that reeks of forced humor, where Asbel of Pejite makes faces when chewing some nuts in the fossilized under-world that the two of them find.

But all complaints aside, what a film! From the first frame onwards, the post-apocalypic world is revealed bit by bit to us, in brilliant, miniscule detail. Fantastic creature designs – you can almost feel the pollen-like effervescence that covers the decaying parts. The gentle pastel and watercolor cel-shades are way more faithful to Miyazaki’s painting style than his later works. Long sequences bereft of words or music, overlaid with the sound of the wind, are bold sound design choices for the time. There was a dubbed recut version released in the 80s, called Warriors of the Wind, and I am sure they added lots and lots of discerning soundtrack choices throughout the film. Human flight is of course a recurring Miyazaki theme. The flying sequences are awe-inspiring even today, especially the parts where the airships fight in the clouds. All the other Miyazaki themes are also in place – environmentalism, anti-war and a mellow good/evil conflict.

What was going on in the US the year Nausicaa released in Japan? Movies released that year include The Terminator, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, One Upon a Time in America and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Among animated releases, Walt Disney released a home video reissue of its 1973 film Robin Hood. The Transformers came out on TV for the first time. Did the people watching these even know about this Japanese release? Doubt it.

And I saw the trailer to The Secret World of Arrietty for the first time. It’s going to be screened at the Egyptian on the 13th, 4 days before the official US release. I may give that a miss if it’s the dubbed version, though.

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Movies

The Ghibli Theater Watch: Porco Rosso

A Pig's gotta fly.

Today was the first day of the 2-week Ghibli retrospective that’s begun at the Egyptian and Aero theaters. Porco Rosso was the first film being screened. Fresh transfer, and this is the twentieth anniversary of its release. I am happy to say that it blew my mind just as thoroughly as it did the first time I saw it, many years ago. Some things are timeless indeed.

Is Porco Rosso the most adult-oriented of the Ghibli movies? Not just adult in the sense that the primary characters are middle-aged, but also because the protagonists Marco and Gina are obviously world-wary, both a little jaded, with a trace of wistfulness in their demeanor. Fio, the young aircraft designer who accompanies Marco in the second half of the film is the obvious Miyazaki teenage heroine, the archetype that features in all his films. But the story is about Marco and Gina and their past and all the stories that they carry. And for once, we do not see Miyazaki’s world filtered through adolescent eyes. There is a clear political tone to the film too, with Miyazaki’s distaste for fascism coming through loud and clear. And then there is death and the hint of the afterlife for people of the  sky, beautifully portrayed in a sequence inspired by a Roald Dahl short story.

Call me crazy, but I think it would be an interesting experience to watch the film in Italian. The only dubbed anime I have watched and enjoyed so far is the TV series Hellsing. It is set in England, and it only seemed right to watch English characters speak in their language. Newspapers, fliers and movie posters in the world of Porco Rosso are in Italian, as is the song Gina sings in the hotel. I remember reading somewhere that Miyazaki apparently liked the French version better than the Japanese. But then, the former had Jean Reno voicing Porco – you cannot get better voice-acting than that.

What got me this time around was how expertly – and effortlessly – this film takes you through a range of emotions, from the opening hilarity of the Mamma Auito pirates kidnapping all the school children and the chase sequence that follows, to the sobering nature of Marco and Gina’s unspoken relationship. From the heady aerial battles to the quiet scenes involving sky, water, sand and clouds. and the most bravura segue of them all – the way the cartoonish showdown between Curtiss and Marco ends the main storyline, only to dissolve into Fio’s voice-over gently nudging the curtain down. Leaving behind bittersweet emptiness, with just an edge of … I dunno, hope? Promises? The idea that the real world does not really have an ending?

Yes, this is the Ghibli film with the most perfect closing sequence. I am willing to defend this opinion to the death.

Saturday has My Neighbor Totoro and Whisper of the Heart playing back to back at the Aero, in Santa Monica. There’s Spirited Away tomorrow too, but I will catch the re-screening next week instead. Original Japanese with subtitles wins over an English dub.

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Myself, Quizzing

Nostalgia: The first Nihilanth

For those who came in late, Nihilanth is an inter-IIT-IIM quiz festival that is held every once in a while. It’s technically supposed to be organized on an annual basis, but that does not happen. It is held at a random IIT or an IIM, the choice of institute being decided by the sudden death of two randomly selected quizzers from every institute on a deserted island, or so I hear.

My association with this festival goes back to the very first time it was organized – brace yourselves, young ‘uns, it was way back in 2003. NINE YEARS, holy moley! I was 23, about to turn 24, and the only quizzes I had conducted so far were in my own college, and in a local Warangal school, where the kids really enjoyed the impromptu Harry Potter round. Except the ones that had not read Harry Potter by then, the little losers. Well anyway, what happened was that we had organized a quiz festival (called Trivium) in our college a few years ago, and I did the music and movie quiz. A bunch of students from REC Surathkal were in attendance, and proceeded to make a killing at the events. They won nearly every quiz, and were kind enough to take us quiz-masters out for dinner as well with their hard-earned prize money. One of them happened to go to IIM Indore a few years later, and it was him – Suryakrishna Tamada Tatineni, ‘Suki’ for short, who had the bright idea of organizing an inter-IIT-IIM event. And the brighter idea of inviting me to conduct the Entertainment quiz.

Somewhere down the line, people seem to have come to the conclusion that I was responsible for naming the aforementioned quiz the ‘MELA’, short for Music(or Movies) Entertainment Literature and Arts, thereby starting the tradition of referring to every entertainment quiz by that name. People are wrong. Personally I thought the name is a ghastly one and I have no idea who coined it. But for better or worse, it has stuck, and I suppose it does not really sound that bad now.

I wasn’t paid much for my services. But that did not matter, I was over the moon at being invited. Why? Because the General quiz was being conducted by a certain Siddharth Basu. I was going to conduct a quiz with – okay, technically just at the same venue, but still – the guy who got a majority of college students in India addicted to quizzing. Yes, this was a Fucking Big Deal indeed. I found out later that the man was paid a 100 times my fee. Heh, now that was a Big Deal.

But screw that. A lot of things came about thanks to that quiz. It jump-started my alternative career as Quizmaster for college festivals around India – which in turn nourished finances for my fledgling comic art collection. The spurt in invites happened primarily because the people who attended the MELA liked it a lot, and when they needed a quiz-master for their college fests, they gave me a chance. Gaurav Sabnis was there. I remember his college contingent being a little late to my quiz, because of which I had go through my prelims again. He had very kind things to say about it – little wonder then that the second quiz I conducted was in IIM Lucknow the next year. Arnav Sinha was in IIT Delhi, and was one of the reasons I was the first QM they locked on when Nihilanth happened there the second time, a few years later. This was also the first time I met Shamanth and Siddharth (who, as I realized recently, keeps popping into the blog every now and then – hi again, Bofi!) They did not make it to the finals of my quiz, but kicked ass in all the others. Fellow Hyderabad-quizzers Dhaaji and Anil were in attendance too – Anil could not participate that year, but Dhaaji did, as a solo IIM Bangalore representative if I remember correctly. I believe I lost all chances of doing a quiz at IIM Bangalore because one of my questions involved identifying the Beatles, from a demo of  ‘Strawberry Fields’, and that pissed him off beyond belief. Sheesh. I wish I have an excuse, but I don’t. What the hell was I thinking?

It was not entirely by coincidence that I ended up in the same taxi as my fellow-Quizmaster doing the Science and Sports quizzes at the event. We were housed in adjacent rooms at the Hotel Sayaji Grande after all, and over genial breakfast conversation on Saturday, we learnt of common interests. Phone numbers, as well as trivia about Richmal Crompton and Tintin comics were exchanged. We promised to stay in touch, more so because he tantalized me with news about how a friend from the USA had gotten him six CDs full of digital comics. I had heard of Arul Mani before, but that was the first time I met the Good Doctor. Neither his magnificent whiskers nor his patented Thigh Grab were on display that day, but it was an auspicious start to a long and lesbian-vampire-enriched relationship. Meeting Arul was also how I found myself in Daly Memorial Hall one fine Sunday that year, asking questions about Malini Iyer, HP Lovecraft and Artemis Fowl to a mostly-befuddled audience of Karnataka Quiz Association members.

So why am I talking about this today? Because of my books, surprisingly. You see, all my books just arrived yesterday from India, and are currently taking up a bulk of my apartment-space. I have been halfheartedly opening up some of them this evening, trying not to hyperventilate in the process. And I came across a bunch of pictures. Most of them were taken by a helpful student on my camera (trivia: the camera was part of my winnings at the Saarang 2001 Main Quiz at IIT Madras). Yes, it was a film camera, and yes, the photographs are mostly crap. But still, a hearty steaming slice of nostalgia.

This year’s Nihilanth was held at IIM Lucknow a few days ago, and it was the first in which I did not conduct a single quiz. On the plus side, I go to watch Porco Rosso in the Egyptian theater tomorrow.

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Movies, Music

Reverse piracy – an example

A few years ago, a film-maker called Jaideep Varma began working on a documentary. The subject of his film was a Delhi-based band called Indian Ocean.Until then, Varma’s filmography featured a low-budget film called Hulla that came and went without much fuss. I have no idea if it is any good.

Leaving Home, as the documentary came to be called (it’s named after one of the band’s early songs), is perhaps the first of its kind in India – an up-close-and-personal look at a band that has managed to exist through more than two decades, defying every naysayer concerned about the state of independent music in India. Jamming their way to glory since the eighties, Indian Ocean has survived musical trends, record label shennanigans, and recently, personal tragedy, to become one of the most distinctive musical acts in the country. Their songs range from fiery political poetry set to music to long, meandering instrumentals that soothe and excite at the same time; they combine rustic melodies of the hills with virtuoso chord progressions and bass licks. One of their most well-known songs is a centuries-old Aramaic prayer arranged in their own unique style. The only common element to their music is a rawness, an Indian-ness that is hard to talk about but simple to understand once you listen to them.

The making of the documentary was, as far as I know, a troubled, rough affair for Mr. Varma. I know he put a lot of his savings into it, and that of his friends. His troubles were further exacerbated when no distributor would pick up the film just because there was no precedent for something like it. In his own words:

Making the film, however, was the easy part. The real struggle began then as there was ostensibly no outlet to release the film. At least that’s what the powers-that-are in the industry said repeatedly. “There is just no place to show this.” 150 channels on television but not sure where this fits in. Scores of multiplex screens all around India but not sure if even one can be spared to accommodate this. That’s what the recurrent theme was when the rounds of producers’/ distributors’ offices began. We were laughed out of the room most times…once or twice, quite literally.

The film was completed in 2008. Asheem Chakraborty, the lead singer of Indian Ocean passed away in 2009. The band carried on with its musical journey regardless, with a temporary lead singer and tabla player. Jaideep managed to get a half-hearted theatrical release for his film in 2010, in selected multiplexes in some major cities. It went on to release on Direct-To-Home cable, and then got a DVD release. Word of mouth helped, as did the publicity on Facebook. It won a National Award for Best Arts and Culture film – even there, the producers’ credit was mangled during the awards ceremony.

Despite being an Indian Ocean fan, I never managed to catch the theatrical release of the film. I wanted to buy the DVD, but there were too many life-changed going on at that time and I was not buying anything at all. Finally, when they announced the non-availability of the DVD on the Facebook page, I figured I had no alternative but to torrent it. There was just one source, with one seed and 71 people downloading. Never a good sign. But I kept the torrent on, and a few weeks later, it was done.

When I got around to watching it, I found that the video began with a plug for a 286-minute extended edition of the documentary. Which sounded great, but where on earth was it available? Did it release at all? A few hasty Google searches revealed that yes, the longer version had released, and was out of print as well. I went and checked the Facebook page again. They railed against the disinterested producers who were not interested in bringing out more copies of the DVD even though there was a clear demand. But wait, it also mentioned that copies were available on Flipkart for a limited time. I went over and checked the site even though I was fairly sure it would not be there.

But it was! Leaving Home: The Longer Trip, and was being offered at a discount as well. Ordered immediately, and a friend who was in India at that time kindly agreed to accept the shipment on my behalf, and got it over. I got it this weekend. Haven’t played it yet, but it’s funny how I ended up buying something that I had downloaded just a month ago.

And that, my friends, is how reverse piracy works.

Previous posts on Indian Ocean here and here.

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