Miyazaki/Kitano/Oshii at Venice

[Akiko S. S.]

Dear Mark

> Now has anyone seen the other two films?

I haven't seen Ponyo, but made it to see The Sky Crawlers of Japan
premiere showing with a talk of Oshii, Rinko Kikuchi, who did the
protagonist's voice, and other actors.  (Few professional voice
actors were involved in this film.)

The film will start showing at movie theatres this weekend, but
those who already saw it criticised the way in which the 3DCG and
the digital technique were used in the background and the characters
somewhat awkwardly.  In contrast to Miyazaki's Ponyo, Oshii used the
latest refined 3DCG, so that the audiences who are not of PS/XBOX
game generation probably don't feel comfortable with those pictures.
 (Actually, this technique has been applied to make many TV
animation programmes  lately because of good cost performance.)

The story is based on Mori Hiroshi's novel The Sky Crawlers series
(6 vols.).  I think that Oshii packed Mori's essence of the novel
into a 2.5-hour film pretty deftly.  I enjoyed the way in which
Oshii arranged female characters.  And the theme of War and Peace,
the society and individuals, etc. made me think of current problems
of Japanese younger people.

Akiko

******
Akiko Sugawa-Shimada
akiss00999 at yahoo.co.jp

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