Director's Spotlight: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest filmmakers we've ever had and is the reason I don't dismiss anime as an adult like I did when I was younger. Miyazaki often uses the exaggerated eyes and mouths characteristic of anime to evoke emotions, often those of childhood. His recurring themes of ecology and flight are explored often but never repetitiously. He can bring the fantastical to even a realistic and simple seeming story like The Wind Rises, while also bringing darkness in the form of a frighteningly rendered earthquake and the ensuing chaos. He does the same thing in movies like Castle in the Sky, which has scenes of transcendent beauty, terrifying action, and (for me too) broad comedy. His work holds so much and is what keeps us coming back to it over and over again.

Through research I've found that his work holds a lot of debt to the Shinto religion and their belief that everything in the world has a spirit. Often in Miyazaki's movies nature seems to have a sentient life and soul of its own, either rising up to counter people's negative influence, like in Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke, or the way that we literally see forest spirits and water spirits in Spirited Away, or nature guardians in My Neighbor Totoro. Much of this comes from Shinto and how it's engrained in Japanese culture. It's a much more spiritual and beautiful way of seeing the world than we're used to here in the US. I can't get enough and go back to Miyazaki's gorgeous work over and over again.

Miyazaki makes not only some of the most wonderful, awe inspiring, perfect family movies, but some of the best movies ever made, period. I have previously put his Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind on my top 50 movies list, as it's the one that I connect to the most for some unexplainable reason. A lot of people seem to connect to Totoro, Mononoke, or Spirited Away the most, but it's Nausicaa for me. In 2016, Spirited Away was even named by the BBC as the 4th best movie of the 21st century, and in 2017 the New York Times named it the 2nd best of the 21st century. It's also the movie that made him "Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki".

My ratings for his work

1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - 10/10
2. My Neighbor Totoro - 10/10
3. Spirited Away - 10/10
4. The Wind Rises - 9/10
5. Castle in the Sky - 9/10
6. Princess Mononoke - 8/10
7. Howl's Moving Castle - 7/10
8. Castle of Cagliostro - 7/10
9. Ponyo - 6/10
10. Porco Rosso - 6/10
11. Kiki's Delivery Service - 6/10