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starladyThis movie was also on the TAAF program, and since I missed it in Japan and the States the first time around, I wound up going. (If nothing else, I have to keep up my record with Ghibli films; I'm still only short Ocean Waves and Takahata's Only Yesterday.) The art is gorgeous, and as an animated film, it's a brilliant showcase of things that traditional animation can do that computer animation simply can't. But--you knew there was a but--in the end I didn't really enjoy it very much. I'll go further; I don't think it was a better movie than Big Hero 6 or Song of the Sea, both of which it was in competition with for Best Animated Feature at this year's Oscars. (Song of the Sea was robbed, though Big Hero 6 is great.)
My problems mostly resulted from the changes that Takahata made in the folk tale, a version of which I've actually read in the original classical Japanese. In the folktale, despite the fact that he keeps finding gold in the bamboo trees, the bamboo-cutter and his wife and Kaguya-hime stay in their house in the woods rather than moving to the capital (lolwhat) and the suitors and the emperor all come to them. Although Kaguya-hime is definitely assertive in the movie, to me she seemed to be more of a badass in the original version (not helped by her crying about how she's a fake all the time). It's probably superfluous to say that Takahata has no conception of Heian marriage practices, but because he doesn't, the story is definitely shoved into a more patriarchal frame, and the bamboo-cutter being obsessed with getting Kaguya-hime married doesn't help matters. Moreover, the Emperor's actions are both totally out of character, and in a society in which seeing a glimpse of a noblewoman's face was synecdochic for having had sexual relations with her, basically constitute sexual assault, which I really didn't appreciate. Finally, while there's plenty of ambiguity in the original story whether the moon people are aliens or just basically Buddhas, I'm really attached to my interpretation of the emotionless moon people as alien elf types, and I was disappointed to see Takahata take the other tack.
So, yeah. I'm glad I saw it, and it wasn't a bad movie on any technical level; just really not my cup of tea.
My problems mostly resulted from the changes that Takahata made in the folk tale, a version of which I've actually read in the original classical Japanese. In the folktale, despite the fact that he keeps finding gold in the bamboo trees, the bamboo-cutter and his wife and Kaguya-hime stay in their house in the woods rather than moving to the capital (lolwhat) and the suitors and the emperor all come to them. Although Kaguya-hime is definitely assertive in the movie, to me she seemed to be more of a badass in the original version (not helped by her crying about how she's a fake all the time). It's probably superfluous to say that Takahata has no conception of Heian marriage practices, but because he doesn't, the story is definitely shoved into a more patriarchal frame, and the bamboo-cutter being obsessed with getting Kaguya-hime married doesn't help matters. Moreover, the Emperor's actions are both totally out of character, and in a society in which seeing a glimpse of a noblewoman's face was synecdochic for having had sexual relations with her, basically constitute sexual assault, which I really didn't appreciate. Finally, while there's plenty of ambiguity in the original story whether the moon people are aliens or just basically Buddhas, I'm really attached to my interpretation of the emotionless moon people as alien elf types, and I was disappointed to see Takahata take the other tack.
So, yeah. I'm glad I saw it, and it wasn't a bad movie on any technical level; just really not my cup of tea.
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Date: 2015-03-26 20:54 (UTC)