Monday, May 27, 2013

Family Movie Night: Tales from Earthsea

Title: Tales from Earthsea
Director: Goro Miyazaki
Original Release: 2006
Choice: Our Girl's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Image via Wikipedia

Tales from Earthsea, based on the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin, was the directorial debut for Goro Miyazaki, son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.  The hero Arren is an unusual one (more on that in a bit).  Having committed a horrible crime, he runs away from his castle home.  A wizard named Sparrowhawk saves his life and takes him under wing (so to speak).  After more misadventures, the two make their way to the farm home of Tenar.  They are pursued by slavers employed by an evil wizard, Lord Cob.



The film has received mixed reviews, both domestically in Japan and internationally.  Le Guin herself was displeased with the film as Miyazaki changed much of her original story.  The narrative is complicated - not exactly unusual for either Le Guin or Studio Ghibli - and can be difficult to follow. 

However, the movie is generally praised, even in poor reviews, for its visual presentation.  Most impressive to me is the use of light, not something one normally considers in regards to an animated film.  In general, I think Ghibli is at its best with landscapes and Tales from Earthsea is extraordinary.  If you look at a hillside on a sunny day in the real world, its color is vivid, though hardly uniform.  Animation rarely reflects such subtle shading but Earthsea does so marvelously.  Furthermore, much of the story is set at either dawn or dusk.  Shadows lengthen and colors deepen accordingly.  I have often perceived Impressionist influence, Monet especially, on the art of Ghibli in its landscapes.  Monet himself did numerous studies of the effect of light at different times of the day and the year.  He, of course, was in turn influenced by the Japanese artists Hokusai and Hiroshige.  All comes full circle.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Arren's crime is patricide.  He kills his father, the king, and steals his sword.  This is difficult to reconcile with his generally sympathetic character.  Arren's moral ambiguity is explored thoroughly late in the story, though it is unclear whether or not he was driven to the crime by outside sorcery or by his own internal conflict.  At the end of the film, he heads home to accept responsibility for his crime.

***END OF SPOILER***

Multi-generational considerations:
  • The film was rated PG-13 in the US for violence.

19 comments:

  1. We rather enjoyed this movie when we did it for family movie night a while back.

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    1. I liked it, too. It's not the equal of other Ghibli masterworks but well worthy of a permanent spot in the FMN rotation.

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  2. I don't know why, but ever since I was a kid I just couldn't get into Japanese animation. They put such work into it, but when it came to moving the mouth, they were just like "Meh, open, closed, jaw-unhitched or some combination thereof is all we need."

    Just really distracts me.

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    1. I can't say that I really cared for them as a kid either. However, not all anime are equal. As a parent, exploring Studio Ghibli's films has been most gratifying. Disney, Dreamworks and even Pixar seem awfully formulaic in comparison.

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  3. I liked the movie well enough, but I haven't read the books yet.

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    1. Me, neither. The only Le Guin book I've read myself is "The Lathe of Heaven" - entertaining but pretty wild! My daughter has read some of her children's books and enjoyed them - not this series, though.

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    2. I've been contemplating reading, 'The Dispossessed' by LeGuin.

      What you write about color and light in this post makes me think of the novel I am a little over halfway through -- which I *was* thinking about writing up for the Coffeehouse but the pace had slowed to a crawl for me and I set it aside for a bit. Not giving up on it. Already invested 200 pages, but not actively trying to finish it at the mo ...

      Anyway, it's about video game designers and there's a passage on lighting and shadow in virtual engineering that is reminiscent of much of what you wrote here.

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    3. Sounds fascinating. Video game design is neat stuff - an industry that didn't even exist 40 years ago.

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    4. Came into existence around the same time we did.

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    5. But has grown far more than we have. The fact that one can now buy the soundtrack to a video game is just amazing to me.

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    6. No way it's grown far more than we have. No. Way. All that is enigma and mystery within me shouts against that statement.

      Also: SEVEN!

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    7. Zygote to middle-aged vs. Pong to Black Ops 2. Both have grown exponentially to a point beyond recognition of the original.

      Seven? The movie? Love it. I don't ever need to see it again but I love it.

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    8. LeGuin's 'The Dispossessed' is very good. There's really nothing else like it.

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    9. Thank you for the recommendation!

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    10. Oui. Thanks. I had begun to move in the direction of Heinlen's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' in favor of 'The Dispossessed' and now you have me rethinking.

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    11. Everyone ready for the coffeehouse tomorrow? I keep forgetting. Thankfully, my post is already to go. So excited!

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    12. 'So excited!'

      That was little-boy cute.

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    13. Also, I meant 'Heinlein.' *Blegh*

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    14. Little-boy cute at 40 - I can groove with that.

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