New York Times and Sen to Chihiro / Go

[M Arnold]

From: "Ulrich Plate" <plate at gol.com>

> he delivers his punch line: "Revered in Japan, Mr. Miyazakai delights in
> playing the antiglobalization curmudgeon."

There are some essays at the "Sen to Chihiro" web site with interesting
comments, talking about how the film is Miyazaki's unique kind of
"anti-hollywood entertainment."  Also a line in a piece Miyazaki wrote where
he states that in the "borderless" world, races who forget their past are
going to be made to lay eggs like chickens until they're gobbled up.  If
this were a different film it might have made better sense to me, but this
time those lines stuck out in my memory because I got the strange impression
I could have mistaken them for something out of an Ishihara Shintaro speech.
I do think the movie has several weak points, and while I read again and
again that Sen's trip to the land of the gods was supposed to be a very
unique Japanese experience, I kept seeing shadows of Alice in Wonderland and
the Wizard of Oz.  Anyway I'm getting off track.

I do think Haku was supposed to be a dragon; Sen certainly does have to fend
him off in a few scenes.  Has anyone here read the Eureka special issue on
"Sen"?  There were a couple of essays in the book I thought were fairly
provocative--one on Miyazaki as the "king of perversion" and another
entitled something like, "Anime of the Empire/The Empire of Anime."  I'd be
interested to hear how any of you 'read' those.

For my first trip to the movie theater in 2002 I went to see "Go" in
Yokohama, and I thought it was very worthwhile.  As usual I eavesdropped on
the other moviegoers while walking out of the theater, and one man was
telling his friend that he was disappointed the film had received so little
mass media publicity, and that it was probably due to the subject matter.
Does anyone have comments on this?  It did take a while for me to find a
place to see the film, but I haven't been watching the media closely enough
to say how much attention they've been giving this one, and it did get
Japan's nomination for the Academy Awards...

Michael Arnold