Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 03/02/25

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, March 2, 2025

The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023)

Cast (voices): Soma Santoki/Luca Padovan, Masaki Suda/Robert Pattinson, Aimyon/Karen Fukuhara, Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan, Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale, Shohei Hino/Mark Hamill, Ko Shibasaki/Florence Pugh, Kaoru Kobayashi/Willem Dafoe, Jun Kinamura/Dave Bautista. Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki. Cinematography: Atsushi Okui. Art direction: Yoji Takeshige. Film editing: Rie Matsubara, Takeshi Seyama, Akane Shiraishi. Music: Joe Hisaishi.

As usual, Hayao Miyashi plunges us from the real world, in this case Japan in the midst of World War II, into other realms with mysterious towers, wizards and pyrokinetic maidens, malevolent pelicans and parakeets, and all manner of perils from which his young protagonist must escape with the help and sometimes the hindrance of a strange heron who somehow has fused with a grotesque humanoid creature. Does it make sense? No. Does that matter in the least? Not at all.