By Jonny Walls
Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan’s most celebrated filmmakers. He is the mastermind behind many of the greatest entries in the formidable Studio Ghibli canon, including such films as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, and many more.
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| From Spirited Away |
Pixar animation studios are the American outfit behind the Toy Story series, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, and other modern classics. They are the the innovators responsible for birthing that particular style of computer animation which has since become nearly ubiquitous.
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I hope that what first struck you about the title of this piece is how unnecessary it is to try and weigh Miyazaki’s work against Pixar’s. I hope you rushed to this piece in wrath, intending to tell me how trivial of a notion it would be. Because you’d be right.
And yet, here we are.
Perhaps the triviality behind this concept is the very thing that intrigues: Miyazaki and Pixar are both so different and so good. It’s a wonder they’re able to occupy such vast expanses of greatness within the animated realm, and experience so little crossover. And they’re not different in the way Jaws and The Jerk are different, or the way Alien and Stranger than Fiction are different. Those wonderful films all vary on the surface, but share similar bones in terms of three act structure, character arcs, and the like.
Pixar’s films, on one hand, employ computer-generated animation wherein every angle, every straight or curved line, every color, every frame, conform to perfection. They are modern masterpieces of the three act structure and Western storytelling, which they have it down to a science. They embody everything good and effective about the style (and they’re animated to boot). For this reason, they are in many ways similar, but in many ways the polar opposite, of Miyazaki’s films.
Miyazaki’s films employ old school, hand drawn animation. They breathe the air of slight imperfection and glow with the light of the human touch. Though I’m no expert in Eastern storytelling, I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that Miyazaki’s films embody, in no small way, a large part of what Eastern storytelling is all about. Far fetched, I know, as he is a Japanese filmmaker, but there you have it.
Culture Shock
The first time I saw Spirited Away, my first Miyazaki film, I knew I loved what I’d seen, but I wasn’t quite sure what I had seen either. I remember thinking that much must have been lost in translation from a literal, linguistics standpoint, as well as a cultural, thematic standpoint.
In one early scene in Spirited Away, the protagonist, a young girl named Chihiro, must cross an entire bridge while holding her breath. If she fails to do so, she will become visible to the magical creatures and spirits all around her, possibly exposing herself to danger. It’s never explained exactly why holding her breath will keep her invisible or how the origins of this bizarre system came about, and the gimmick doesn’t reappear in act three. It just pops up for one scene and is forgotten in the ether of this magical world.
Now, if this were a Pixar film, the breath-holding concept would be thoroughly motivated and explained, and it would have a specific purpose beyond the immediate problem at hand—Chihiro crossing the bridge. And, almost surely, it would resurface in act three, just when we’d forgotten about it, and play some role in redeeming the protagonist. Only this time she’d be able to master the technique, thus bringing the vision of her growth full circle. And this would happen because that’s what well-oiled, watertight three act structure films do. Nothing is frivolous. Nothing is arbitrary. Nothing happens just because.
But with Spirited Away and many of Miyazaki’s other films, a plot device (if one can even label it such) like the breath-holding concept is just that: arbitrary. In an interview about Spirited Away, Miyazaki addresses this very scene. He says that he wanted to employ some arbitrary rule such as holding one’s breath to remain invisible, because that’s the way children’s games often go. Arbitrary rules are imagined and applied, without necessity of explanation.
Arbitrary is normally the enemy of good storytelling. In a Western style story, it serves only to weaken the foundation, yet with Miyazaki, it strengthens the vision of the world he’s created. As a Western viewer, it feels strange at first, but when his films and others like it are accepted on their own terms, they take a from of their own that is equally rich.
Experience vs Experience
The big difference in the two styles can be neatly summarized in the way that they approach the word “Experience.” In both cases, the goal is to create a beautiful, compelling, and unique Experience for the viewer, and both camps succeed. But Pixar’s films approach Experience, first and foremost, as something to be drawn upon. From the heart-wrenching final scenes of Toy Story 3 or Up to the odd familiarity of Marlin’s anxiety in Finding Nemo, Pixar’s films use our own lives and experiences, but portray them from alternate points of view, which helps us see our own all the more clearly.
Miyazaki, who approaches experience from the other angle, seeks to create a new experience for the viewer. Or put another way, he strives simply to provide an environment in which unique experiences may be cultivated. It may be a bathhouse for the spirits where every hand-drawn frame oozes an indefinable, otherworldly quality, or it could be a magical moving castle with a rotating portal to different kingdoms in the blustery hills of some far off, enchanted world. He’s not interested in guiding us all to the same place; he simply seeks to beckon us away from home.
It’s Not So Cut and Dried as Black and White, Up and Down, East or…
The truth is that Pixar’s films, while running a tight and deliberate course, also do amazing things to sweep us up in their wonder, above and beyond the plot. These small touches range from a quick shot of a baby fish falling off of a “trampoline” and bursting into tears, to the glowing lights of Paris in the background of a scene that’s actually about a lost rat. But the main objectives of these films are all driven by singular purpose and ruthless efficiency. And bravo to Pixar for that. I hope they carry on showing us our own lives in new and exceedingly entertaining lights, not wasting a single frame along the way.
Conversely, Miyazaki’s films aren’t all floating images and whimsical allusions to the most abstract hints of reality. (Some, such as My Neighbor Totoro, show that Mr. Miyazaki can tell stories with the best of them in any fashion he desires.) Even in his most abstract form, Miyazaki’s films still make use of plot, character development, and purpose, but the viewer should remember that these elements sometimes lie in the shadows of the overall experience he wishes for us. He is a true marvel and one of the rare filmmakers who can actually pull it off.
The Big Takeaway
Don’t be stupid enough to try to compare Miyazaki’s films with Pixar’s. In fact, don’t be stupid enough to compare any films from a strange culture to any Western films. If there’s a lesson in here (and I’m not positive there is), it’s that Experience comes in many forms and needn’t be married to one style.
By all means, go see Brave this summer. Enjoy it. But if you’ve never checked out a Miyazaki film, or if you have and found it off-putting, go give some of his stuff a look. You just may feel yourself being taken away from home, and what’s more, you may like it.
By Jonny Walls
Verbal Infusion 