Nausicaä - Prinzessin aus dem Tal der Winde

I saw the dubbed version years ago and, even in that form, was taken by the imaginative visuals, interesting storyline, and worthwhile characters. I was also impressed by the fact the lead character was a strong young woman, who was a "warrior" yet whose greatest strength lay in her compassion (rather than striving to become a female Rambo.)

I tracked down a copy of the VHS and sent it to my young nieces, pleased with a "kid's" movie which provided a positive role model without being dumb. The movie captivated them as well -- they wore the tape out, and it started them on a lifelong interest in anime. It was they who sent me the uncut subtitled version years later, completing the circle.

Nausicaa is decent science fiction, often breath-taking animation, and unusually *human* characters, and every time I see it I am glad I returned. Everyone should give it a chance, especially those who have written off anime as "round eyed kids and lots of explosions".

Director Hayao Miyazaki won a place in my heart after I saw his 2001 film Spirited Away. I'm in no position to claim to be an expert on Miyazaki (I've only seen three of his films), nor am I really a big fan of Japanese animation; but I can safely say that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is one of the very best animated films I have ever seen. The beauty of the animation is stunning, with its close attention to detail--every frame is constructed as a work of art--and the story is enthralling. As with other Miyazaki films, the majority of characters are much more three-dimensional that you typically get in Western animated features, and nearly all of them aren't exactly what they seem to be.

Nausicaä, which is based on Miyazaki's gargantuan Manga series, is set in the distant future, after fires destroyed much of the earth. The world is being consumed by the Sea of Decay, a toxic forest that spreads through airborne spores and is protected by giant insects called ohmu. The Valley of the Wind is one of the last pure places on earth, and its Princess, Nausicaä, is a strong-willed yet free-spirited young woman seeking to solve the mystery of the Sea of Decay. A nearby nation, which claims to have harnessed the power that allowed humans to rule the earth a thousand years before, takes over after a plane carrying a mysterious living cargo crashes in the valley. What follows in the film is a struggle, not of good versus evil, but of man versus nature. The story is complex, as is its message, and Miyazaki has ingeniously spun deep complexities into the animated characters: what look like foes may not be, and what look like friends may be a bit more dangerous.

The animation is colorful, sweeping, expansive, and beautiful, as are the plot and characters. There is an immediacy to the story that makes a big emotional impact and makes us question how we handle our position in nature. As one of the characters in the film asks, have humans become but a tribe destined to be swallowed by the Sea of Decay? It is ultimately a film about compassion in the face of violence and war, which is what makes it so different from Western features.

Disney's recent DVD release is excellent. The film can be watched either in the original Japanese audio or Pixar's dub with Patrick Stewart and Uma Thurman, and there are separate subtitles for each language track--a literal one (hallelujah!) for the Japanese track, and a more closed-captions style set for the English track. The film is so stunning in the Japanese that I have never considered watching the dub, though a fellow film buff has said that it is "not so bad." After this film was released in the US in the 1980s in a completely mangled version called Warriors of the Wind, Miyazaki suspended all US rights of all his other films until the distributor would honor the stipulation that they be released without any editing. The fact that Disney, which is known for watering down nearly everything it touches, has done this with such a non-Western-style movie is amazing.

... and it's only got angrier since this epic critique of the damage and destruction the human race affects against the flora and fauna of the place we call home, as well as upon itself. Visionary, prophetic, disturbing and heartbreaking, often concurrently, a testament to future generations that we were fully aware of our impact and neglect, that we chose to do very little about it and that what we did do was long after the horse, the fish, the insects (especially the bees) had bolted.

The first thing to establish is that this is a science fiction epic. It has more in common with 'Dune' or any number of SF novels - Brian Aldiss's 'Hothouse' springs to mind for one- than it does with a typical western animated children's film. Therefore one's expectations should be a little different, and ultimately it was the SF aspect which gave the movie such a high grade in my books. Whereas it didn't have quite the emotional clout that I look for in an animated feature, it was a stupendously told SF story.

Technically not a Ghibli film (Miyazaki actually used the studio which did most of 'The Last Unicorn', and which more or less became Ghibli when 'Laputa' was made a couple of years later), 'Nausicaa' is a far-future SF story with a princess/warrior/nature-lover heroine and strong environmental themes. There's also an opposing princess/leader trying to use technology to overcome the apparently hostile environment. If you're starting to think 'Princess Mononoke', you'd be on the right track. In some ways 'Nausicaa' seems like an early stab in the direction of 'Mononoke', though the latter would delve far more into spirituality and mythology, eschewing the SF aspects.

There aren't really any major weak points in Nausicaa - unless you count the frustrating 12 drawings per second animation which I constantly complain about in Japanese animation. The backgrounds aren't as amazing and the animation not as good as the last few Ghibli films, but for 1984 it was plenty good enough. I have a fairly trivial complaint in that the character of Kuratowa is drawn in a slightly more 'anime' style, ala Lupin III, whereas all of the other characters are done in a realistic style. He just seems a little out of place, though he's quite delightfully drawn.

The really strong points of the movie are its pacing (at least until the very end. Miyazaki was unhappy with the end too), its story telling, which manages to be sophisticated without being impossibly complex, its engrossing background drawings and settings, - and most of all in the amazing attention to detail in the fully realized post-apocalypse SF-fantasy world in which the story is set. Every little thing is worked out and placed such that you find yourself admiring inventions, ideas, structures, creatures, etc which don't draw attention to themselves, but simply exist as part of the backdrop of the movie. Of course 'Nausicaa' had existed for several years as a serialised Manga, so Miyazaki no doubt knew its universe inside-out.

There's a very clever plot, which I won't give away, but which involves humanity's relationship with the Earth and nature.

It's the sort of movie which you can get thoroughly caught up in, and which will stand repeated viewings. It really is a film which is perfectly pitched at both a young and an adult audience. As Miyazaki's second feature film it is also, rightly or wrongly, usually considered the start of Studio Ghibli, and is arguably worth watching for historical reasons, too.

Not the very best from Miyazaki or Ghibli, but an auspicious beginning.

PS, in case you didn't know, there was a heavily butchered US version floating around called 'Warriors of the Wind', which is universally reviled as a disgrace. Just to make it confusing, some of the Japanese copies are also called 'Warriors of the Wind'. The thing to look for is the 116 minute running length. If you get that, you've got the right one. At the moment the only way you can get the film is in Japanese dialog with English subtitles. Personally I'd go ahead and do that, rather than wait while Disney squats on the US distribution rights (Amazon gives it a release date of 2010 for God's sake). You can always replace it later.

Good stuff.

First off, let me state emphatically that I'm referring to the REAL version of the film, not the pathetic crippled creature distributed as "Warriors of the Wind" on video. Although I must admit that I first fell in love with the movie in that form, I have now seen the full subtitled version, and I place a hideous curse on those who hacked over 20 minutes from its running time.

Although the incredible "Princess Mononoke" later upstaged this early work in terms of art and detail, in many ways I still prefer "Nausicaa". Its imaginitive and well-conceived world puts me in mind of Dune with its feuding factions, its giant creatures, and its strong ecological message. Even with a rather long running time, the story moves very briskly (boiled down as it was from a very lengthy manga series). The music deserves special mention, as well, as it is a large step up from the electronic pop stylings of most anime.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the original version, you'll find it more than worth the effort.