Over the course of his long career, Hayao Miyazaki has become one of the most beloved and acclaimed directors not only in the making of animated films, but in the cinematic medium as a whole. Miyazaki, along with Studio Ghibli, the anime company he co-founded, has produced a host of animated classics such as My neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononokeand Spirited Away. He has become one of Japan’s most internationally renowned filmmakers; he is a multiple nominee for an Academy Award (winning in 2003 for Spirited Away) and in 2015 he received an honorary Oscar for his esteemed filmography. Miyzaki loves making his movies, and he even came out of retirement for another movie, How do you live?.
Miyazaki has worked in the animation industry for nearly 60 years, starting out as an animator on several films and television series in the 1960s and 1970s. The first feature film he directed, Cagliostro . Castle, was released in 1979. However, it was Miyazaki’s second film that put him on the map. Released in 1984, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was the real beginning of the director’s legendary series of films. In Miyazaki’s incredibly consistent and celebrated career, Nausicaä still holds up as one of his best and the first true masterpiece to emerge from the director’s endlessly creative mind.
The Origin of Ghibli
The success of Nausicaä is directly responsible for founding Studio Ghibli. The movie is based on a manga of the same name, which was also created and written by Miyazaki. For the film, Miyazaki worked with several people who would become long-time creative partners, most notably Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki. After the release of Nausicaäthe trio decided to continue working together and in 1985 they founded Studio Ghibli to produce their future creative endeavors.
Although from 1986 Laputa: Castle in the skywas technically the first film made by the Studio Ghibli team, Nausicaä has retroactively been given the title of the first Ghibli film. Although the film was originally distributed by the Toei Company, Ghibli has long since acquired the rights to the film and distributed it under the company’s name and banner. Many of the films Miyazaki and Ghibli have produced over the years have been directly followed in Nausicaä‘s footsteps, with intense themes of environmental awareness and industrialization, a specific focus on flying, a female protagonist, fantastic worlds and magical people inhabiting them. Many of those concepts have become defining aspects of Miyazaki and Ghibli’s overall style and approach to filmmaking, Nausicaä is the blueprint that created these ideas for the company.
Nausicaä also marks the first collaboration between Miyazaki and composer Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi has since conducted the music score for every film Miyazaki has directed, in addition to other Ghibli productions such as The Story of Princess Kaguya. Hisaishi’s work on Nausicaä a mix of electronic and classical instrumentation. He used different synthesizer soundscapes (which sound from the 80s in the best way) in many of the film’s action scenes, but when it comes to Nausicaä’s central themes and the natural world, Hisaishi chose to use soft sounds instead. piano and string ballads.
Making epic fantasy movies
When you look at Miyazaki’s filmography, it becomes clear that the director has an affinity and talent for telling very fantastic stories. A vast majority of Miyazaki’s films are set in imaginative worlds, and they tell epic tales of magic and war in these worlds. Given his talent for developing, designing and bringing these environments to life, it’s tempting to think about what a Miyazaki-directed adaptation of Under the spell of the Ring or Dune would look like. We will, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind definitely clears up that contemplative itch, as the film is basically Miyazaki’s equivalent of those kinds of high fantasy stories.
The world that Nausicaä depicts is really everything a fantasy fan could wish for. It’s a strange world with a long history, all kinds of strange giant creatures, warring civilizations and plenty of reflections of the folly of humanity. The different civilizations each have their own distinct cultures and visual looks, clearly recording and separating their societies from each other. There is a masterful elder warrior named Lord Yupa (voiced by Patrick Stewart in the US dub) who is looking for a prophesied leader who will appear and save the world from its second destruction. And the titular character of Nausicaä is a natural hero who is forced to face her own beliefs and shortcomings, and she eventually becomes the hero of the legend. It’s about as imaginative as you can get, and it’s certainly one of the most epic and mythological stories Miyazaki has ever told.
The design and animation of Nausicaäthe world is beautiful and complicated, just like Studio Ghibli’s films would become famous for in the following decades. The home of Nausicaä, the Valley of the Wind, is a beautiful place with a simple yet effectively picturesque atmosphere. Meanwhile, the Toxic Jungle is a highly detailed and mysterious place, full of strangely arranged vegetation and populated with scary but strangely regal giant insects that can be both cute and the stuff of nightmares. The Ohm (or Ohmu) are the best example of this, as their massive size and myriad eyes are unsettling to look at, but when Nausicaä can contain their anger, they are actually very gentle creatures.
Environmental Messages
Miyazaki’s films always feature some form of heavy message or thematic material, with the treatment of the natural world consistently being one of them. Nausicaä is certainly no exception. The film depicts life on a post-apocalyptic Earth, in which the planet was destroyed thousands of years earlier by bio-engineered Giant Warriors who carried out a week-long nuclear decimation of the world and its societies. In this bleak future world in which Nausicaä inhabits, the planet’s natural environment is relentlessly poisonous, giant bugs and insects roam the world and threaten the surviving sects of humanity, and the people who remain are isolated in their various kingdoms that are constantly be on the run. war with each other.
Needless to say, Nausicaä does not paint a positive picture of the outcome of nuclear fallout. However, the overall message of the film remains surprisingly optimistic, as amid all these depressing circumstances the focus of: Nausicaä sticks to understanding the natural world and treating it with respect. As the warring nations of Pejite and Tolmekia battle over an unearthed embryo of a giant warrior, with each kingdom seeking to use the warrior’s power to destroy the others and the poisonous jungle they inhabit nearby, Nausicaä’s character remains focused on connecting with and healing the natural world rather than destroying it further. She wants to avoid further death and destruction. She consistently risks her life to save others and spares her enemies, even if they wouldn’t do the same.
thematic, Nausicaä deals with humanity’s constant war against the natural world, an idea that would be further explored in Princess Mononoke. While the various nations of humanity are constantly fighting each other, they all see the giant insects of the Toxic Jungle as their primary enemy. They dream of destroying the jungle and restoring humanity to the immensely industrious state it used to be. Meanwhile, the jungle’s plants and creatures just progress on their natural path. This idea that nature is only trying to heal is further confirmed when Nausicaä discovers the clean air and environments that exist beneath the Toxic Jungle. The film shows that nature is simply trying to clean up the mess humanity has made of the world, and humanity’s constant need for dominance threatens to plunge the world into nuclear chaos once again.