"Kaguyahime no monogatari" or "The Tale of The Princess Kaguya" is the newest Studio Ghibli movie. You may know director Isao Takahata, who turns 80 next year, from "Grave of the Fireflies" or the 1970's TV show "Heidi".
As I wrote in the title, the way you will perceive this film is gonna depend a lot on how you like the animation. It is almost like a children's book and certainly not everybody's cup of tea as it's just so different, not only compared to what Disney and Pixar did in recent years, but also compared to other Ghibli films, such as Miyazaki's work. If you appreciate the style, however, you will surely like this movie. Checking out the trailer before might be a particularly good idea here to get a grasp of what you can expect. By the mere looks of it, this film could also have been made 50 years ago.
My favorite part was possibly the first 45 minutes, the time Kaguya spends with her "parents" in the village before they move to the city. It's just all so harmonic and easy-going. Quite a shame, her father had something else for her in mind as otherwise we may have gotten the same for another 90 minutes. The life in the city and Kaguya's transformation were good to watch too, but not really for the story than for all the cultural and social references of Japan. The stories with her admirers were solid, but somehow I felt something was missing. The ending was a good idea. I liked the return-to-the-moon plot, but I wished it would have been done without all these moon people coming down to get her. I actually really liked the sequence, where she flies up with her childhood crush and this could have worked as a better ending in my opinion. But at least, they did not go for a forced happy ending.
I am not sure about the Japanese version, but the German dubbed version I saw had a female narrator with very little text that was really not necessary in my opinion. One particularly interesting thing about the story was her relationship with her father. Even if he was the driving force for her different new life, which she did not appreciate at all, she was always as loving to him as she was towards her mother. This film offers lots of room for interpretation. Was the finding of the bamboo with a girl inside just as unlikely as the mother giving birth to her at that age and was the girl actually suffering from an illness that resulted in her early death? What about the quick growing early on and the normal growing later on? With that early speed, she must have surpassed her parents in terms of age quickly. And what about the bamboo reference? Do these grew tall quickly and stay the same till they die after 25 or so years? Is there a botanist in the room? This film is on the preselection for Academy Award Best Animated Feature Films and it will be interesting to see if it can make the cut and score the nomination or even possibly win. To make a decision for myself, I still have to see some of the other films on that list. Kaguya, however, is certainly worth watching and there were only really very few moments where I felt it dragged a bit, unsurprisingly with such a long runtime, especially for an animated movie. It was all very rewarding as the song that played during the closing credits was pretty beautiful.
As I wrote in the title, the way you will perceive this film is gonna depend a lot on how you like the animation. It is almost like a children's book and certainly not everybody's cup of tea as it's just so different, not only compared to what Disney and Pixar did in recent years, but also compared to other Ghibli films, such as Miyazaki's work. If you appreciate the style, however, you will surely like this movie. Checking out the trailer before might be a particularly good idea here to get a grasp of what you can expect. By the mere looks of it, this film could also have been made 50 years ago.
My favorite part was possibly the first 45 minutes, the time Kaguya spends with her "parents" in the village before they move to the city. It's just all so harmonic and easy-going. Quite a shame, her father had something else for her in mind as otherwise we may have gotten the same for another 90 minutes. The life in the city and Kaguya's transformation were good to watch too, but not really for the story than for all the cultural and social references of Japan. The stories with her admirers were solid, but somehow I felt something was missing. The ending was a good idea. I liked the return-to-the-moon plot, but I wished it would have been done without all these moon people coming down to get her. I actually really liked the sequence, where she flies up with her childhood crush and this could have worked as a better ending in my opinion. But at least, they did not go for a forced happy ending.
I am not sure about the Japanese version, but the German dubbed version I saw had a female narrator with very little text that was really not necessary in my opinion. One particularly interesting thing about the story was her relationship with her father. Even if he was the driving force for her different new life, which she did not appreciate at all, she was always as loving to him as she was towards her mother. This film offers lots of room for interpretation. Was the finding of the bamboo with a girl inside just as unlikely as the mother giving birth to her at that age and was the girl actually suffering from an illness that resulted in her early death? What about the quick growing early on and the normal growing later on? With that early speed, she must have surpassed her parents in terms of age quickly. And what about the bamboo reference? Do these grew tall quickly and stay the same till they die after 25 or so years? Is there a botanist in the room? This film is on the preselection for Academy Award Best Animated Feature Films and it will be interesting to see if it can make the cut and score the nomination or even possibly win. To make a decision for myself, I still have to see some of the other films on that list. Kaguya, however, is certainly worth watching and there were only really very few moments where I felt it dragged a bit, unsurprisingly with such a long runtime, especially for an animated movie. It was all very rewarding as the song that played during the closing credits was pretty beautiful.