Long day

[altivo]

The rose-breasted grosbeaks have arrived. Only the wood thrush and indigo bunting are lacking now and it will be as good as summer. Well, if it ever stops raining. Gray and rainy since Wednesday night, and the current forecast calls for it to continue until next Thursday. Very different from last year, when we were already into a drought. At least so far, the rain is very gentle and coming only a half inch a day, which is about perfect.

Spinning Guild this morning, sold two of our six fleeces there. When I took the bags of wool from the barn to load into the car, the sheep all came running to the fence and started baa-ing loudly at me as if they were yelling "Thief! Thief!" It was very strange.

We had a huge salad from the garden for dinner, thanks to the cold frames that started everything so early. Right now we have literally bushels of lettuce and spinach.

Then watched Howl's Moving Castle on DVD, which has some interesting moments in it, but like so many of Miyazaki's films that I've seen, I find it rather incomprehensible. I don't know whether the anime art distracts me from the story line (if there really is one) or the story line is just incoherent. The only one that has really worked for me was Kiki's Delivery Service.

Comments

Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[animist.livejournal.com]

Howl's Moving Castle was interesting, but it's not one of my favorites. I am nuts bout Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and also love My Neighbor Totoro, which is rather more sentimental for me than "wow"! The first two I list defintely wowed me. Part of the appeal of Princess Mononoke is the slightly alien setting. Both of them come accross to me like my occasional epic dreams - complete worlds with different rules that I feel like I fall in to. I also like the element of "Magical Realism" in Spirited Away - the sense of a supernatural world that co-exists with our own.

For me, part of this works because of how the movies connect with my archetypes of the female, what Jung called "The Anima", and other archetypes, too. Since such archetypes are connected to sexual orientation - even when not connected to sexual arousal - I have to suspect that how I would respond to the archetype would be different than you. In Princess Mononoke, there are two strong Anima figures, both strong - the Wild Woman, and the Queen. In Spirited Away, there are also two in competition - The Maiden and the Crone. And two of the anima figures in Totoro, although non-sexual or non-threatening, are children who invoke strong paternal feelings of protection - and the third, Mother, is hidden away like a fragile Jewel. The Animus figure in eahc of these movies is shaped in how he responds to the Anima. Again, I suspect how you respond word be quite different than how I would.

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, of course Howl's Moving Castle is not a particularly Japanese story (neither is Kiki, for that matter) and I'm not a student of Japanese culture. My brother watches these and points out all sorts of referents that are meaningful to someone raised in Japan and familiar with the folklore and mythos. To me they appear as rather curious attempts to recast what are essentially Western cultural artifacts in Japanese idiom, as if a Japanese painter copied the Mona Lisa or a Japanese poet recast Macbeth as a series of haiku.

Jungian symbols and analysis have never really worked for me. In this film I did notice the three ancient female archetypes, the fates or norns or whatever you choose to call them: maiden, matron, crone. Those were clearly represented by the protagonist and the two witches. I suspect, though, that they are there because they are in Diana Wynne Jones' original book, which I believe I may now read in order to try to make sense of the story. Miyazaki's presentations always seem so broken up to me, with so many loose bits sticking out and hanging, that they just aren't coherent. Spirited Away was simply incomprehensible.

I had thought that these films were so popular because we have a youth culture that is deeply steeped in Japanese contexts now, between gaming, anime, and manga, that the Japanese viewpoint makes sense to them and they can fill in the omissions. However, if it works for you, I may be wrong, since I didn't think you were that heavily involved in the current worship of all things Japanese. ;P

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[animist.livejournal.com]

No, I'm no big fan of Youth culture, nor do I bow at all things Japanese. Perhaps though there's a connection with the fascination I have felt for Japan and it's culture since my visit there in 1984. And there's the since of familiarity and affinity I have felt towards Zen Buddhism since I first started reading people like Alan Watts around the same time. I feel a strong affinity with both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism today - the later adding layers of archetypes in the form of Gods and Demons, layers that ultimately are seen to be projections of aspects of the self. Very Jungian!

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, Buddhism I have a fair understanding for, or at least I like to think I do. The Japanese variants, though, are so far from the main trunk as to appear to be a different plant entirely.

Sort of like a Bonzai tree

[animist.livejournal.com]

It's different, but not unimaginably so. Anything in Japanese Buddhism is in Buddhism in the other Mahayana Buddhist countries. It's just been sculpted to fit Japan. This includes the devotional salvation religion of Pure Land Buddhism, the Esoteric Buddhist Schools, and Zen. For a look at non-Japanese Zen, a good place to start is Tsai Chi Chung's Book of Zen

Re: Sort of like a Bonzai tree

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Funny that you should mention bonzai. I can appreciate the zen rock gardens, but the bonzai offends my sensibilities. Torturing trees for some kind of artificially twisted esthetic that is just as stunted as the trees are to become? Not in my house, thank you.

Re: Sort of like a Bonzai tree

[animist.livejournal.com]

Well, that makes sense, and explain a lot of your non-interest in things Japanese. It always seemed to me that the Bonzai Tree was very symbolic of Japan in ways I can't quite verbalize.

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[deffox]

I like most of Miyazaki's films; with Princess Mononoke, Pom Poko, and Spirited Away being my favorites. Though I've yet to watch Howl's Moving Castle.

I tend to watch them more than once to pick up on cultural references. For me it probably is in agreement with your comment on youth culture. With my exposure to Japanese things being fairly high, my interest did grow.

I wouldn't go as far as to say a worship of all things Japanese. Though I do have a couple Shinto related books. For me it ties more into my affinity for foxes than a genuine belief in eastern religions.

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Shinto is probably a better referent for much of Japanese culture than is Buddhism. With that I agree. Even Japanese Buddhism, as practiced, often seems to be more Shinto than Mahayana, let alone the stark Theravada of central Asia.

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[animist.livejournal.com]

I wanna see a movie about Kitsune. :)

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Pom Poko has a kitsune in it.

And Naruto has a spirit of a Kitsune, though the Kitsune itself doesn't have much of a personality beyond being a powerful monster.

Re: Anima and Animus in Miyazaki's films

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And I just put Pom Poko at the top of my Netflix queue this morning. Should come as soon as they get Howl's Moving Castle back. I thought maybe raccoons would be more interesting than big-eyed childlike characters.

That's one of my problems with anime I guess. They remind me of those awful paintings that were so popular back in the 70s, images of waif-like children with eyes much too large for their faces. I've forgotten who the painter was and probably so has the rest of the world now, but they were the next fad after black velvet paintings. Ugh.

No, I can't stand South Park either.

[scruff.livejournal.com]

Spirited Away! ♥

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Incomprehensible gibberish. ;P

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

My Friend Totoro. Thats the one that hooked me and my kids.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That one is somewhere on my Netflix list, I"m sure. Every time a Miyazaki film comes up though, I wince.

[animist.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about Magical Realism?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not generally my cup of tea. If I'm going for fantasy, I want the real thing. ;p

[animist.livejournal.com]

I thought so. One of the things that appeals to me about Miyazaki's films is that air of Magical Realism. I love the stuff and have since I first encountered it as a child watching "Twilight Zone". The air of mystery and the sense of unseen worlds parallel to the seen one is something I can identify with in my own life and my personal experience. what I like about this genre is that it seems so relevant to the everyday world - that at any moment, one cn step accross the boundaries.

Remember that I have had lucid dreams and so forth since childhood. Often the so-called real world seemed more contrived and less real than my dreams.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

But I see no connection between lucid dreaming and literary realism. :)

Magical Realism

[animist.livejournal.com]

Magical Realism is not the same as literary realism. I think an excellent example of Magical Realism is The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich. One of my favorite chapters is when the narrator meets the ghost of his dead mother in a bar after closing time. I also like the one where the narrator goes on a vision quest to meet his totem animal, which is a hilarious encounter. In Erdrich's books, animals talk to people, wendigo walkers scratch one's windows at night, and ghosts come back to demand to know "Where's my God-damned car?" I can relate to this, as these are the kinds of things that happen unbidden in my dreams.

http://www.harpercollins.com/authorintro/index.asp?authorid=2905

Re: Magical Realism

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I do see magical realism as a kissing cousin of literary realism. It is realism with an aside, a sidetrack where things don't work as our physics professors told us they did, but otherwise it is realism.

Magical realism is the antecedent of fantasy, that travels around the edges of the consciousness without bringing the magic into full focus, or uses something unexplained and apparently magical in an otherwise everyday setting. The boundary between magical realism and pure fantasy is a fuzzy edge, of course. Borges is magical realism, while Tolkien is fantasy, but there are untold works that could go either way. The currently popular vampire novels of Rice or Hamilton, for instance.

[animist.livejournal.com]

YAY!

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

YOU WOOL THIEF!

*baas and runs in circles*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Of course, in typical sheep-like fashion they've forgotten how hot and uncomfortable they were a week ago and how delighted and suddenly energized they were once it was sheared off.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

Otto gets upset when I trim him, and gather the hair, and toss it out. He would probably try and eat it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Our dogs get excited about that too. But it isn't really about the hair, it's about the treat they invariably get for cooperating with the procedure.

[nipper.livejournal.com]

There's definitely a story there, perhaps you just need to watch it again and pay more attention. Or perhaps you could read the original novel for comparison, that would be interesting.

Also, while it isn't a Japanese story, it was written by Diana Wynne Jones. It is told from a Japanese point of view however, and there are certainly cultural differences.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was aware of the story. I just felt that it was told in such a disjointed fashion that it was pretty unintelligible. I often feel that way about live action films made from books, too. They always have to leave so much out to keep the running length manageable that it ends up all chopped to bits.

Yes, I intend to look at the original book now, and being familiar with Diana Wynne Jones, I do expect that to make sense to me.

[animist.livejournal.com]

So you recomend the Novel to read? I liked the movie. I heard the two are quite different. Will this lead to confusion do you think?

[nipper.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it myself, although I would like to.

Whether you feel that would cause confusion is up to you, it wouldn't bother me.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I have the book in my hand now. I'll let you know after I've read it. ;)

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

No, you're right, it is incomprehensible, and Miyazaki himself more or less says so if you watch any of the extras where the extremely geeky Lassiter introduces him to an audience at Pixar.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was starting to feel like the odd horse out on this. :)

[hrrunka]

It makes a sort of sense if you've read the original novel (and its sequel) and can pick out the original story elements. Miyazaki has interpreted it rather liberally, leaving out huge chunks and throwing in all sorts of random extras, so the final film is quite difficult to follow. If I were to show it to anyone unfamiliar with the original I think I'd probably spend the whole film trying to explain which bits matter, which are missing, and which are just plain wrong. I doubt it'd be worth the effort.

Kiki is the one I like to show folks who're not familiar with anime. It just works.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Now I feel much better. As an intelligent, educated person I've been wondering what was wrong with me that I couldn't make sense out of these films when they have so many adoring devotees. It's a relief to know that I'm not the only one who finds them flawed in this way.

After two viewings of Spirited Away my reaction was that the animators just took a bunch of scenes they thought would be fun to do and pasted them together without any rational sequence or connection between them, and when challenged chose to just say "It's magic."