A whimsical tale of childlike imagination about a young girl and her baby sister: siblings who fear the death of their mother while learning to commune with nature. Director Hayao Miyazaki’s creation is imbued with the vital spirit of symbiosis as human beings destroy the world and forget that they are an integer of nature’s elemental algorithm.
Set in the late 1950s, Satsuki and tiny Mei move into a dilapidated farmhouse in a small farming community to be closer to their mother, who is sick and in the hospital. This taps the quicksilver anxiety of all children who fear the death of a parent, especially a subtext concerning radiation poisoning in a country still suffering from nuclear fallout: their parents must have been children themselves during the war. One day the energetic Mei falls through the rabbit hole and into the lair of a forest troll, the spiritual protector that resides within an ancient Camphor tree. She names him Totoro and his gentle furry mass wobbles and yawns playfully, and the other smaller wood sprites seem more scared of this little girl than she of them! Soon her big sister Satsuki meets Totoro at a bus stop and gives him a gift, an umbrella to shelter him from the rain. In a beautiful scene, Totoro becomes enamored with the sound of raindrops tapping upon the taught fabric and shivers with excitement before catching his Catbus to some unknown destination.
The sisters are the only ones privileged to see the forest spirits, and even their father pays tribute at a withered shrine; another example of how distant humanity has grown from its roots. Miyazaki’s wonderful imagery tickles the imagination, from a ritualistic dance under the twinkling stars and a ride upon a magical top, to the many-legged tour-de-force of a Cheshire bus. But a letter causes the girls alarm when their mother cannot return home from the hospital, and little Mei becomes lost amid the fields and swamps while tying to find her mother and give her a stalk of corn…because she picked it herself. One frightening scene is fundamental to create frisson: a pink sandal floats ominously upon a lake while the village elders search for her body with bamboo sticks. Satsuki pleads for help and Totoro sends for the Catbus and all ends happily ever after; her mother is going to be fine, the family reunited, and live in harmony with nature.
Final Grade: (A+)
Mark and Daria are birthed from the barren womb of Death Valley: he drifts among the clouds while she drives endlessly, both drowning in sea change. ZABRISKIE POINT is a film of its time: post-1960's radicals and counter-culture protest Big Business and a Fascist Administration, the fat white men who rule the world. It is also a film of our time. Director Michelangelo Antonioni creates a vaporous dream-world where his characters linger; Mark in his hijacked plane rising above reality and Daria racing down the two-lane blacktop…both about to clash with harsh reality.
Mark and Daria escape together far from the madding crowd and into the desert, imagining their free love shared with other castaways and drifters. Both characters are archetypes, meant to represent ideals rather than multi-faceted individuals, and possibly Antonioni displays contempt (or perhaps futility) for the nihilistic militant drama that ends on a long road to nowhere. We feel emotionally disconnected from the narrative, although Alfio Contini's intense Scope cinematography is always interesting: he utilizes roving close-ups and pan shots that are disorienting and experimental, and often focuses our attention upon billboards and advertising like militant propaganda. This creates frisson as the dichotomy between those in power and those without is delineated; Mark and Daria represent those without power with only one way to (attempt to) attain it: debt bondage. Her boss, a Real Estate tycoon played by a stout Rod Taylor, is a cipher for the Overseers who gouge the planet and its people for their own profit.
After their brief affair, Mark chooses to return to meet his fate in a rain of bullets, unwilling to be in debt either physically or philosophically to The Man. Daria’s option is more profound for she can become part of the Order, accepted into the status quo: she looks towards the mansion on the hill and makes up her mind; imagining an explosive orgy of fire and death, she drives away disappearing into the scintillating desert haze. Antonioni films the final explosion from seemingly twenty different angles, showing the destruction in slow motion while the soundtrack thrums with hypnotic Pink Floyd music. If destruction is a form of creation, what New World Order awaits Daria?
Final Grade: (B-)
The Girl becomes witness to a middle-aged man’s crisis as he virtually disappears into the stark desert air; she becomes the passenger unable to un-Locke his identity and purpose. Michelangelo Antonioni structures the film with an emotional complexity and stunningly languid visuals; a self-reflexive narrative that exists within David Locke’s intuitive and hastily extemporized perceptions.
The plot is rather mundane as Locke assumes the identity of a dead acquaintance named Robertson and leaves his entire life behind him, his only goal forward momentum on a road to nowhere. He begins to live Robertson’s life through the deceased’s diary, picking up papers from a Munich locker and keeping scheduled meetings. He is soon pursued by gunrunners, foreign assassins, and his own past while racing towards an inevitable nexus of these disparate elements. He is accompanied by a nameless companion, a beautiful girl met serendipitously, who attempts to understand his malaise, to guide him towards salvation, but she is ultimately powerless; Locke steers his Mercury towards his own cruel destination.
Antonioni films in long breathtaking vignettes, each shot embracing the characters and peering into the abyss of Locke’s soul, revealing the stark banality of human nature: sometimes we don’t understand ourselves, we can’t explain our own actions, we just act without premeditation. The fatal climax is a seven minute tracking shot: it begins with Locke meditatively resting on a bed awaiting his final meeting as Robertson as the camera slowly tracks through the window’s iron bars to the dusty courtyard, then slowly back again as we follow the girl, Locke’s wife and police back into the room where he has been murdered. This is one of the greatest shots in cinematic history and should be studied for its technical achievement and sublime mise-en-scene. Locke’s wife, who has finally discovered the deception, speaks the truth: she never knew this dead man.
Final Grade: (A+)
