Original subtitles

(APPLAUSE)

(BRIGHT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

MAN: 'Hayao Miyazaki has deeply influenced animation forever.'

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

NARRATOR: For more than 50 years,

Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki has enchanted the world with his films.

He has made 11 feature films,

a dozen short films and many mangas.

His work has attracted millions of children

and adult moviegoers all over the world.

(APPLAUSE)

Miyazaki is the creator of Princess Mononoke...

..Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle...

..The Wind Rises...

..and My Neighbor Totoro.

(LAUGHS)

(SQUEALS)

MAN: (SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

MAN 2: Every frame I can think of of a Miyazaki film

has this pulsating,

scintillating liveliness to it.

(WIND GUSTS)

MAN 3: (SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

These masterpieces have earned him international recognition...

WOMAN: He is very much revered and respected.

He is successful and glamorous.

..for which he has been awarded the most prestigious awards.

Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki.

The characters he created have become cult.

(THUD) (YELLS OUT)

(ROARS)

Miyazaki also co-founded an animation studio, Studio Ghibli...

(ANNOUNCEMENT IN JAPANESE)

..whose productions won over Japanese fans...

..before spreading throughout the world.

There's a great deal of respect for nature and all things,

it's just... they're just beautiful films.

These films that have become cinema classics

are made by an artist whose life and work

have weathered the storms of the 20th century.

(APPLAUSE)

(SPEAKS JAPANESE)

An awareness of the world deeply rooted in Miyazaki...

(PLANE ROARS, GUNFIRE)

..that he cannot detach himself from...

..because his films also tell the story of a humanity...

..obsessed with war and conquest...

..struggling with wild consumerism...

..and at the mercy of a raging nature.

(ENGINE REVS)

A humanity that leaves future generations

a landscape devastated by the climate crisis.

(WIND GUSTING, OBJECTS CLATTERING)

A humanity that seems cursed and to him, beyond help.

We are all part of this huge universe of natural connections,

and if we don't start acknowledging that...

(FAINT RUMBLE)

..then we are gonna be in big trouble.

MIYAZAKI:

Miyazaki has always been inhabited by this deep tension

between darkness and light...

..a driving force behind a constantly renewed creative desire.

(BRIGHT MUSIC)

Through the marvellous art of animation...

..his dreams, made of connections with the natural world,

were brought to life,

becoming an infinite source of joy and hope.

This magical antidote enables him to overcome his darkness,

and to reconcile him with life...

..a work which, in turn, questions our relationship with living things.

MAN 2: We need to figure out how we're going to care for this planet,

and I think watching a Miyazaki film will help you to figure that out.

WOMAN: He is saying, "You can't give up.

You can't walk away."

MAN 4: (SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(BRIGHT MUSIC MELLOWS)

(MUSIC ENDS)

(INSECTS CHIRPING)

In the building harbouring Studio Ghibli in a Tokyo suburb.

Miyazaki draws at his narrow desk tirelessly,

at the rate of a few seconds of animation a day.

He draws from his own memories -

the raw material that guides his hand.

He delves into his dreams and fantasies,

his nightmares and traumas.

(SINGING SOFTLY)

An intimate resource deeply rooted within himself since childhood.

Hayao Miyazaki was born in Japan in 1941.

His earliest memories will always be those of the raging bombings.

(WIND WHISTLING)

(FLAMES ROARING)

(EXPLOSIONS)

(MISSILES WHISTLING)

(EXPLOSIONS)

(ROARING FLAMES)

(EXPLOSION RUMBLING)

"July 12th, 1945.

When I was four years old,

I experienced a night raid on Utsunomiya.

"The sky was as clear as daylight.

Was it our house that just burned down?

SUSAN NAPIER: Basically, by the end of the war,

every single major city in Japan, with the exception of Kyoto,

had been terribly bombed.

I mean, just devastated.

He was four years old when the worst bombing happened,

and his family had moved outside of Tokyo.

But then the bombings came to them in this small city of Utsunomiya.

They were able to escape, literally, through the flames.

He says he remembers his street on fire.

(SOMBRE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

A few weeks after the bombing of the Miyazaki family home in Utsunomiya,

the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan...

..killing nearly 250,000 people,

revealing humanity's new and terrifying ability

to bring about total annihilation.

(BOOMING EXPLOSION)

(MISSILE ZOOMS)

(PEOPLE SCREAMING)

(CARRIAGE RUMBLING, BELL TOLLS)

(SOMBRE PIANO MUSIC)

Miyazaki grew up in a devastated country.

This created in him both a hatred of Japanese and their army

responsible for the situation,

but also an absolute fascination with war machines,

including the Zero Bomber,

a military aircraft closely linked to his family's history.

His father and uncle owned a factory that made parts

for the Mitsubishi Zero aeroplane, which is...

These were these incredible aeroplanes.

They were brilliantly made machines, but they became,

as Japan's losing the war, kind of like coffins,

because they were the ones that the kamikaze were made to fly.

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

So you have this terrible sense of guilt

that Miyazaki has about his family having, you know, made money

on a war machine and a very terrible war machine.

Except he also appreciates the beauty

and brilliance of the Mitsubishi Zero plane.

They really were incredible planes. So you see this...

He's always willing to see other sides to things.

He's not black or white, you know. He's complicated.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(WIND GUSTING)

Miyazaki's teenage years were also marked by another trauma -

his mother's illness.

She developed a spinal infection caused by the tuberculosis bacillus.

For nine years, Miyazaki lived with his brother and father,

fearing that his mother, bedridden and regularly hospitalised,

would succumb to this terrible illness.

(BIRDSONG)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

INTERVIEWER: (SPEAKS JAPANESE)

(MIYAZAKI CLEARS THROAT)

(BRIGHT, PLINKY MUSIC)

"As I reached teenage years,

I realised that I shouldn't be content with just being a good boy...

..but that I had to look at things with my own eyes.

It led me to turn my back on my childhood purity...

..combined with a dark period of studying for an entrance examination,

I came to draw historical and nihilistic manga."

(SOFT ENCHANTING MUSIC IN FILM)

"That's when I saw an animated film,

The White Snake Enchantress.

It was like the scales fell from my eyes."

(LYRICS IN JAPANESE)

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(EERIE MUSIC)

It is a traditional Chinese tale that tells the story of a snake

falling in love with a young boy,

and she later transforms into a human to live this love.

(WIND GUSTING) (DRAMATIC MUSIC)

At 17, Miyazaki had a revelation.

His passion for manga was then joined

by a new passion for animated films,

a magical art capable of depicting the fury of the natural elements,

as well as the delicacy of human feelings.

An art capable of bringing about wonder,

and warding off the despair still deeply rooted within him.

(EPIC MUSIC PLAYS FAINTLY)

"In the 15 years that followed...

..my work revolved around a single objective...

..to watch good animated films and surpass them."

(MUSIC SWELLS, ENDS)

(FUNKY JAPANESE MUSIC PLAYS)

Tokyo, 14 years later.

Two giant pandas, Kang Kang and Lang Lang,

have just arrived from China

as a sign of reconciliation and friendship between the two countries

after the terrible abuses committed by Japan during the war.

(SONG LYRICS IN JAPANESE)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

This panda-mania led two young people,

the animator Hayao Miyazaki and the director Isao Takahata,

to create an animation film together.

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

Huh?

(GIGGLES)

(CRASH) (GRUNTS)

When Panda! Go, Panda! is released,

Miyazaki is the father of two.

Goro the eldest, now a director, was five years old.

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(UPBEAT MUSIC)

This is a film that already encourages children to be free,

independent and to explore the world.

(SMOOTH JAZZY MUSIC)

Panda! Go, Panda! marks one of the first collaborations

between Miyazaki and Takahata, who met ten years earlier

at the Toei Animation Studio Workers Union...

..in which the older Takahata was vice president,

and Miyazaki was the secretary.

Miyazaki and Takahata are part of the militant youth of the Sixties,

who questioned the decisions of their elders responsible for the war,

and dreamed of another world, with Marxist and pacifist values.

NAPIER: Early on, Miyazaki really worshiped Takahata.

Takahata was older. He was a mentor figure.

Miyazaki, really his only audience for a long time was Takahata.

In his own mind. He was always wondering what Takahata would think.

You know, and I think that was probably very healthy,

kind of a healthy competition.

There wouldn't be Miyazaki without Takahata.

Their relationship is one of emulation,

rivalry and unfailing friendship,

leading them to become two of the greatest masters

of Japanese animation.

Miyazaki spent nearly ten years working as an animator

for a television series.

Then, he gradually freed himself from Takahata.

He also received his first commission as a film director

to adapt a successful manga in a feature film...

(CHARACTER WHISTLES)

..The Castle of Cagliostro.

(CALMING HARP MUSIC)

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

This film reveals Miyazaki as an animation prodigy,

capable of staging burlesque, thrilling action scenes

that had never been seen before.

(ENGINE REVS, TYRES SCREECH)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(PLANE ENGINE ROARS)

(SMOOTH BRASS MUSIC)

NARRATOR: After this failure in the movie business,

Miyazaki returned to television,

and even agreed to go to Los Angeles

for yet another job as animation director.

This is for a Japanese-American Hollywood co-production,

featuring Disney's top animators and an entire Japanese team

including Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki.

The project is to adapt the famous comic strip Little Nemo.

The problem is that the collaboration goes badly from day one.

Miyazaki's proposals are rejected,

and he is unable to put forward his ideas.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

Every evening, alone and far from home,

Miyazaki continues his personal projects.

It was at this period of his life that he created drawings

representing his deepest desires and dreams,

already there since childhood.

Stories of connection between the natural world and humanity,

that found no funding.

Miyazaki is 40 years old and his career as a director,

that has barely begun, seems definitely over.

(FAINT TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

No one is interested in his dreams of forests.

(INSECTS CHIRPING) (LEAVES RUSTLING)

"I've been dreaming of an ancient forest.

There will be no concrete, no asphalt,

no souvenir shops or alcohol.

If a tree was smothered by wisteria,

if an insect appeared or if an animal was injured,

humans would not have the right to take action.

If humans survive for a thousand years,

this forest will become the treasure of the world.

Let's erect a natural stone post at its edge.

Let's engrave on it that this forest represents the origins of humanity.

We are all born from the forest."

(TRAINS RUMBLING)

Back in Japan, Miyazaki meets again with Toshio Suzuki,

an editor of the Animage magazine,

who has been interested in his work since the beginning.

The manga, a comic strip published episodically,

would finally allow Miyazaki

to gain total creative freedom through drawing.

SUZUKI:

Nausicaa, a manga centred on a heroine from Greek mythology,

with its publication spanning 12 years.

During all these years,

Nausicaa will become Miyazaki's incarnation of his anxiety,

his darkness, as well as his desires for life and light.

The story of Nausicaa takes place in a world plagued by pollution,

covered in deserts and acidic seas...

..which nevertheless shelters forests with an abundant and toxic nature.

A world at war, in which a princess, Nausicaa,

who loves insects and plants as much as humanity,

does everything she can to avoid annihilation.

A polluted world for which Miyazaki was inspired

by one of the first major ecological disasters

caused by the petrochemical industry.

"An important event led me to the creation of Nausicaa.

The mercury pollution on the Japanese coast off Minamata.

The bay became a sea of death for humans

who were then forced to stop fishing.

But then, after a few years,

schools of fish that could not be seen

in any other seas of Japan have reappeared,

and the rocks were full of oysters.

This news gave me goosebumps."

Nausicaa, an environmentalist and pacifist manga,

the successful publication of which

would be the key to finally convincing funders

to embark on a feature-length cinema film

written and directed by Miyazaki.

(LAUGHS)

(LAUGHS)

(LAUGHS)

(EPIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BUILDS)

NAPIER: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

has this extraordinary opening scene

where the young protagonist, Nausicaa,

lands and you see her going into this jungle-y dangerous forest,

which has huge insects and weird vegetation and everything.

(CREATURES CALL)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(CREATURES CALLING)

And this is the sort of messages that he's trying to suggest

about the need for human/nature interaction.

It's not just humans dominating nature,

it's humans working with nature,

engaging with nature with respect,

and kind of intelligent love and awareness

that we are all part of this huge universe of natural connections.

(INSPIRING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(GASPS)

(SPEAKS IN FRENCH)

(GENTLE MUSIC)

(FAINT BIRDSONG)

(LEAVES RUSTLING)

Nausicaa tempted nearly 900,000 spectators in Japan

during the spring of 1984.

Miyazaki, Takahata and Suzuki

then decided to create an animation studio.

Studio Ghibli.

(BRIGHT JAZZY MUSIC)

Miyazaki, who has been fascinated by aeroplanes since childhood,

suggested using the name of a military plane from the 1930s,

the Caproni 309 Ghibli.

The goal of the studio is to finally give Miyazaki and Takahata

the means to create films that live up to their ambition.

(BRIGHT MUSIC)

(MUTTERING IN JAPANESE)

A unique studio which has even been available

in a museum in Tokyo since 2001.

This museum is a project designed by Miyazaki

and transposed into architecture by his son Goro.

"This is the kind of museum I want to make.

A museum where those who seek fun can have fun."

(PROJECTOR WHIRRING)

"Those who seek to think can think.

"And those who seek to feel can feel.

A museum where you feel more valuable leaving than entering."

(BELL DINGS)

(CROW CAWS)

(LAUGHS)

Since the early 2000s,

Ghibli has continued to offer experiences

that extend the universe of the films,

going so far as to open a Ghibli Park near the city of Nagoya.

(BRIGHT MUSIC)

All these interior spaces continue largely outside...

..within a park designed by Goro Miyazaki.

(CROW CAWING)

(BELL JINGLES)

GORO MIYAZAKI:

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Ghibli's story starts in 1985,

when Miyazaki, Takahata and Suzuki

began producing together the first film of the studio.

Castle in the Sky is an adventure

where two children go in search of a mysterious flying city.

A castle, at the heart of which lies a treasure,

a giant and stupendous tree that seems to be a camphor tree.

(EPIC MUSIC BUILDS)

At this time, Miyazaki was fascinated

by the world of plants and camphor trees.

These trees, native to Asia, are sometimes even sacred,

such as the one at the Shinto temple in Nagoya

that is almost 1,300 years old.

(BIRDSONG)

This typically Japanese tree

serves as an inspiration for Miyazaki's next film...

..a personal and intimate project that he has dreamed of for years.

A film rooted in the reality of his childhood spent in the countryside,

without robots or monsters,

without flying ships or pirates,

without explosions or antagonists.

A film centred on a forest spirit,

living in a giant camphor tree.

(OMINOUS ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(MUSIC MELLOWS, BRIGHTENS)

(EXCLAIMS EXCITEDLY)

(GASPS)

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(GRUNTING)

(BELCHES)

(GASPS)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(GRUMBLES)

(HOPEFUL ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

With this film, set for the first time in his country,

Miyazaki makes us rediscover a Japanese culture

that he feels is essential not to forget today.

(BOY GRUNTS)

(GIRL GRUNTS) Ah!

(LEAVES RUSTLING)

(INSPIRING MUSIC)

Thanks to the magic of animation,

Miyazaki shows us a natural, fantastic and magnificent world.

An imaginary world which is nevertheless rooted

in the reality of a culture where animism was,

not so long ago, still very present.

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

GORO MIYAZAKI:

(CHUCKLES)

(CLAWS CLACKING)

With Totoro, Miyazaki invented a creature

that will gradually become cult.

(GASPS)

A source of happiness for a humanity

that is moving further and further away from animism

and the living world.

This is what the anthropologist Philippe Descola calls naturalism.

(UPBEAT POP MUSIC)

Tokyo, 1990.

The Japanese economic miracle is at its peak.

Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have managed to establish

a reputation in the Japanese market,

thanks particularly to rebroadcasts of the films on television.

At this time, everyone seems to be having fun, except Miyazaki.

(LAUGHS)

(WATER WHOOSHES)

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(PLANE ENGINE ROARS)

(PLANE ENGINE ROARS)

Porco Rosso was a short film

telling the adventures of a former war pilot,

now a bounty hunter on the Adriatic coast in the 1920s.

(PEOPLE SHOUTING)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

The film shows a pilot pig,

reminiscent of drawings in which Miyazaki represents himself as a pig.

Pig flag,

didactic pig,

tyrannical pig,

or a sad pig.

Impetuous pig,

scornful,

pensive,

or bossy.

Thoughtful old pig.

Or even in real life, Pig House.

(PLANE PROPELLORS WHIRRING)

(WATER SPLASHING)

With Porco Rosso, Miyazaki creates a sort of alter ego.

A free and solitary hero aboard a flamboyant red seaplane.

The problem is that during the production of the film,

the Asian economic bubble bursts...

(OVERLAPPING SHOUTING)

..the Soviet Union collapses...

and in Europe, the Yugoslav War breaks out...

..with the bombing of Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast...

..at the very location where the action of Porco Rosso takes place.

Reality bursts into the film,

bringing Miyazaki back to the present.

Porco Rosso can no longer be just a fun and light short film.

The story becomes more complex,

and the film gradually becomes

a melancholic and disillusioned feature film,

reflecting Miyazaki's state of mind at that time.

(BIRDSONG)

Just generally, the 1990s were a very tough time for Miyazaki,

in terms of his perception of the world.

And his perception started to change.

Even though Porco Rosso is... I mean, it was a very fun film,

but at the heart, there is this complexity

of feeling about what kind of person should you be?

What kind of... How do you deal with your past?

How do you deal with yourself?

(SONG LYRICS IN FRENCH)

"I had something of a realisation while making Porco Rosso.

Put quite simply, that no matter how messy things get...

..we have no choice but to go on living."

(SIREN WAILING, INDISTINCT ORDERS OVER MEGAPHONE)

March 20th, 1995.

The apocalyptic sect Aum commits an attack on the metro,

dispersing sarin gas in five carriages during rush hour.

A few months earlier, an earthquake devastated the city of Kobe,

causing more than 6,000 deaths and 40,000 injuries,

due to construction unsuitable for earthquakes.

A series of disasters that delve Japan into an apocalyptic mindset.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

"The question then becomes: what is hope?

And the conclusion I'd have to venture is that hope involves

working and struggling along with people who are important to you.

In fact, I've gotten to the point

where I think this is what it means to be alive."

It is in this terrible context that Princess Mononoke was born.

(CREATURE GROWLS)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Princess Mononoke. One of the last animated films on cel.

Entirely hand-drawn, hand-painted,

and filmed frame by frame.

Miyazaki, perfectionist and obsessive,

redid over 80,000

of the 144,000 drawings himself.

(HAUNTING MUSIC)

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

(WATER TRICKLING)

This is one of Miyazaki's most ecological films,

one of his most explicitly ecological films.

That this idea that the work

is that the action is taking place not on just a kind of stage set,

but in a kind of living world.

You know, Princess Mononoke would be a great example for that,

right, where the actual forest also has a spirit.

(CLACKING, JANGLING)

(JANGLING CRESCENDOS)

(JANGLING CONTINUES)

My absolute favourite scene in all of Miyazaki's works

is when, in Princess Mononoke,

this deer God, the Shishigami.

And it's kind of made of sort of phosphorescence,

it kind of gleams and glows.

And Miyazaki, through animation,

has captured a sacred,

non-human moment.

That is just... It's a gift to all of us

to be able to see this incredible beauty

of something that has nothing to do with humanity.

(WATER TRICKLING) (SLOW FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING)

(GRASS RUSTLING, WHOOSHING)

(WATER TRICKLING SOFTLY)

(LEAVES CRACKLE)

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(SOMBRE PIANO MUSIC) (WIND GUSTING)

Princess Mononoke also marked a personal turning point

in the life of Miyazaki.

(PAPERS RUSTLING)

MIYAZAKI:

(CHUCKLES)

A feature film born of despair and chaos.

A film for which, after being stuck for several months,

Miyazaki will make a decision.

For the first time, he will no longer seek reconciliation,

but will depict a living world and humanity

swept away together in fury and destruction.

(TWINKLING)

(WOLF GROWLS)

(BOARS GRUNTING)

(WOLF PANTING)

(BOAR SQUEALS)

(PUNCHY DRUM BEAT)

In Princes Mononoke, he creates this huge realm

in which you have animals and beasts

and gods and spirits and humans all kind of combined together.

And how do you deal with it?

Well, he makes them fight, because that makes sense.

This is what human beings have been doing

since they sort of started taming and domesticating nature.

And Miyazaki is, in a way, almost kind of embracing that darkness.

As I said, this is a turning point for him.

It's when he starts thinking

that maybe, humanity can't save itself.

(EXPLOSIONS BOOMING)

(BOARS SQUEALING)

(EXPLOSIONS BOOMING)

Princess Mononoke becomes an existential film

for which Miyazaki requires complete commitment from everyone.

With this film, Miyazaki draws on everything

that he's been concerned about for the last 30 years -

spirits, forests, giant animals,

wars, diseases,

in the heart of an ancestral animist culture.

All these elements associated with his prodigious capacity

for rhythm and drawing.

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(PAPERS RUSTLING NEARBY)

(RHYTHMIC CLICKING)

MIYAZAKI:

WOMAN: (IN JAPANESE)

(SIGHS)

Oh, Miyazaki is not going to give you the happy ending.

That's crucially important.

So he won't give us, you know,

humans happily living in the forest with the beasts

who all suddenly, magically know how to talk.

Instead, he gives us a very ambiguous ending.

And this ambiguous ending is very much part of Miyazaki.

And it also relates to his vision of animism,

which is that you don't have clear-cut endings in nature.

(LIQUID BUBBLING, BURSTS)

(PEOPLE YELL)

(LIQUID SQUELCHES)

(OMINOUS MUSIC)

(WOMAN'S ECHOEY SHRIEK)

A film that will remain as Miyazaki's darkest,

while having nevertheless, a phenomenal success.

CINEMA WORKER: (IN JAPANESE)

With more than 14 million admissions,

cinemas are sold out for several months.

The film becomes a phenomenon...

..that will even exceed the national level,

and mark a historic turning point for Studio Ghibli.

(UPBEAT FUNKY MUSIC)

Thanks to Disney, Miyazaki benefits from distribution

in the United States for the first time.

Western audiences discover Hayao Miyazaki,

a 57-year-old Japanese animation film director...

MAN: Hayao Miyazaki. (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

..who is already the author of more than seven feature films.

MIYAZAKI:

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

Princess Mononoke, mixing ecology, animism,

and characters inhabited by good and evil,

appears to be a total discovery.

(APPLAUSE CONTINUES)

(CHUCKLES)

Despite the success, Miyazaki,

who completed three years of production

followed by months of promotional tours,

announces his retirement.

(RAIN PATTERING SOFTLY)

(FAINT EERIE MUSIC)

(BIRDSONG)

NARRATOR: Two years later, Miyazaki seems to have changed.

He drives a Citroen Dolly with its historic cormorant grey colour.

He had another studio built to work peacefully,

not far from Studio Ghibli.

He has recently become enthusiastic about a programme

to clean up the river in his neighbourhood.

(WATER RUSHING)

"The Yanase River flows next to my house.

Twenty-five years ago, it looked more like a polluted ditch,

filled with leeches and midge larvae.

When I participated in the cleanup,

I was happier to see a real crayfish

than to have the grandiose feeling of preserving nature.

What I'm trying to say

is that if you only look at problems from the big picture,

like looking at them from the top of a mountain

or from an aeroplane,

they can seem truly unsolvable.

But if you get closer to the ground,

if you can see a nice path for about fifty metres,

you think it's a beautiful path.

And if the weather is good and the sun is out,

you may feel full of energy."

(PEOPLE GRUNTING)

(MUD SQUELCHING)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(PEOPLE GRUNTING, YELLING)

(WATER AND MUD GUSHING)

(OBJECTS CLATTERING)

Spirited Away marks Miyazaki's return after a four-year absence.

It's the story of a young girl who must work in a witch's bathhouse

to save her parents and return to the human world.

I'm thinking of that scene in the... I think it's in a bathhouse,

where Chihiro is actually washing this gigantic mud demon,

and out of this demon comes all of this stuff, right?

All this human stuff that it's absorbed, right?

That is literally the past.

This creature is filled with the past

and out comes a bicycle and out comes, like,

huge piles of trash, basically.

And then this being is free.

(WHOOSHING, SPIRIT CACKLES)

With this initiatory tale intended for children,

Miyazaki highlights a moral and ethical aspect

that has always run through his characters.

Responsibility.

She's thrown into a situation that she did not ask for.

You know, her parents have just been transmogrified into pigs,

cos they're pigging out on all this stuff.

CHIHIRO:

(GASPS)

(PLATES CLATTERING)

And then she has to be part of this world,

and she doesn't know what to do,

but she takes responsibility for it, right?

(GONG CRASH RESONATES)

Responsibility.

A value that resonates with a society where adults are gorging themselves

and end up devoured by a monstrous faceless being,

and where Chihiro's calm and determined attitude

appears as an antidote.

(WOODEN CLATTERING, PLATE SMASHING)

She is a model of resilience in the face of the temptations

of an insatiable and terrifying creature.

(CREATURE GROANS)

And in a way those films of Miyazaki are like that, right?

They're giving you this beautiful suit of armour

with which to confront the terrible things in our world, right?

Rather than saying "Everything's gonna be fine",

they're actually saying, "Sometimes things are not fine,

but you can show up for that in an incredible costume."

(TRAIN RUMBLING)

(WATER LAPPING INTENSELY)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

With Spirited Away, Miyazaki finds a balance.

A reconciliation between his bleak outlook on humanity

and his long standing duty to entertain and encourage children.

(BIRDSONG)

(UPBEAT POP MUSIC)

Spirited Away is a tremendous success all over the world.

It will remain unbeaten at the Japanese box office for 20 years,

and will bring 36 awards and 19 nominations -

being recognised as an art film with a Golden Bear in Berlin...

(APPLAUSE)

..as well as great popular entertainment

with the Oscar for best animated film.

Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki. (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

A ceremony in which Miyazaki doesn't take part,

as it's taking place at the very moment

of the invasion of Iraq by the American army.

(EXPLOSION)

"The world is currently facing a very unfortunate situation,

and I am therefore sorry that I cannot experience

the full joy of receiving this award."

(LEAVES RUSTLING)

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

MIYAZAKI:

(VOCALISES TUNE UNDER BREATH)

Miyazaki is working on a new project,

which appears to be the final piece of his vision of the world.

A film where he resolutely addresses children,

in whom he has always placed his hope.

MIYAZAKI:

(CHUCKLES)

A project echoing The White Snake Enchantress,

the film that moved him so much as a teenager,

about a love between human and non-human.

(CHUCKLES)

(CAMERAMAN SIGHS)

(BRIGHT, EPIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(WATER SPLASHING)

(EPIC MUSIC CONTINUES)

Ponyo tells the story of a little fish who falls for a boy

and transforms into a little girl to experience this friendship.

(SPEAKS IN JAPANESE)

It thus upsets the balance between the human world and the ocean.

(WATER GUSHING)

(WAVES CRASHING)

A film that will echo, three years later,

with one of the most devastating tsunamis in several centuries,

causing the death and disappearance of 16,000 people,

and the meltdown of the nuclear reactor

at the Fukushima power plant.

(EERIE PERCUSSION NOTES)

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

"I believe the idea that nature is always gentle

and will restore an entire environment polluted by humans

is a complete lie.

And I believe that the idea that we should cling

to such a saccharin worldview is a big problem.

Nature that is generous is, at the same time,

nature that is ferocious."

(PONYO SHRIEKS, LAUGHS)

Through the marvellous staging of a terrible and destructive nature,

Miyazaki prepares us to live in a chaotic world

due to the climate crisis.

(MOTHER GRUNTS) (EPIC ADVENTURE MUSIC)

(GRUNTS)

There's a part in the middle of Ponyo

where Ponyo and her sort of adopted brother

are in the kitchen there,

and they're drinking this hot drink to calm down,

I think the mother says, "Let's calm down with a hot drink",

and outside, you see raging weather.

Right? You see waves, you see wind,

maybe the whole biosphere is under attack right now, right?

In this little kitchen, it's all nice and quiet, yeah?

This is a very interesting interplay,

especially because what's happening outside is silent.

(WHIMSICAL MUSIC)

(THUD) (GIGGLES)

Watching that scene in the Miyazaki film gets you ready for it.

And also reminds you that just because the world is collapsing,

doesn't mean you shouldn't make your son and your daughter

and your friend a nice cup of hot something

with something sweet in it.

Right? Like, since when were we not going extinct?

This has always been true, right?

(GULPING)

(SIGHS, HICCUPS)

(SIGHS)

This silence allows for a kind of listening quality, right?

When you're listening to the world,

it's different from imposing your will on it.

And I think this is a very profound thing, right?

It's almost like the films are like some kind of beautiful machinery

that actually allows you and kind of makes you

and encourages you to kind of pay attention in that way,

to kind of listen.

(WAVES LAPPING)

Then, the next morning, the town is underneath the ocean.

Despite this world, which is turning into a catastrophe...

..Miyazaki once again encourages children to be curious,

adventurous and resilient.

And then they see creatures,

especially fish, from a prehistoric era.

And it is strangely beautiful and strangely peaceful.

And you viewed this end of the world moment

all become part of this much larger universe.

And I would say that that's not totally unrealistic.

There may not necessarily be humanity,

but there will be something.

And we are given, through Miyazaki, a chance to see that.

(EPIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(HARP MUSIC OVERLAPS)

(TRAM WHOOSHES)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(BIRDSONG)

WOMAN: (IN JAPANESE)

(DRINK POURING)

After Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Miyazaki continues to work.

He makes two feature films linked to his family history -

The Wind Rises, then finally, The Boy and the Heron.

(WIND GUSTING) (INSPIRING MUSIC)

(SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(UPLIFTING PIANO MUSIC)

This film, what appears as a final transmission to future generations...

..a film in which Miyazaki, once again, challenges us,

and that could be summed up by using its Japanese title,

"How do you live your life?"

So, how do you want to live?

(BRIGHT MUSIC CONTINUES TO END)