Nihon Chinbotsu

[M Arnold]

From: "Aaron Gerow" <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
> It's Gedo senki. It's based on LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy and the character
> Ged.

I was (barely) able to catch this in the theater before I flew out last 
week. As expected it's full of elements from other Ghibli, Toei Doga, and 
Miyazaki (Sr.) films and it has a fairly opaque narrative, but the pacing 
and visuals are not nearly as chaotic as they are in something like Howl, 
and the animation in a few scenes is outstanding. I hope we can see more 
from Miyazaki Jr. in the future.

As Aaron mentioned, the film is, or is supposed to be, based on Le Guin's 
Earthsea series, in particular the third and fourth books, The Farthest 
Shore and Tehanu. (It looks like there are actually six books in total.) I 
picked up a used copy of The Farthest Shore and read it over a couple of 
coffees and beers last weekend, and I had some difficulty finding the 
similarities. Apparently Le Guin had a little trouble with the film herself. 
She posted a message about it on her web site.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html

Here's a sample:

"Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to 
find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different 
story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but 
with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.

"Of course a movie shouldn't try to follow a novel exactly - they're 
different arts, very different forms of narrative. There may have to be 
massive changes. But it is reasonable to expect some fidelity to the 
characters and general story in a film named for and said to be based on 
books that have been in print for 40 years.

"Both the American and the Japanese film-makers treated these books as mines 
for names and a few concepts, taking bits and pieces out of context, and 
replacing the story/ies with an entirely different plot, lacking in 
coherence and consistency. I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the 
books but to their readers."

The film credits list Miyazaki Hayao's 1983 picture book Shuna no tabi as 
gen'an. A short essay in the pamphlet says that Gedo senki was inspired both 
by Miyazaki's book and Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the 
Mockingbird, 1980) which Ghibli recently rereleased in Japan and is now 
promoting. The same essay quotes director Goro saying that he got the "heart 
and body" of the film from Le Guin, and the "bones" from Miyazaki Hayao.

The other two big anime films in Tokyo theaters now (or just ending) are 
also based on books: Brave Story and Kadokawa's anime remake of Toki o 
kakeru shojo. I hear the latter is packing theaters (the few it's playing 
in) and getting rave reviews.

Michael Arnold