The Heart

Rating: 9/10 (1 June 2014)

I'm going through a sort of Miyazaki renaissance, in which this and "Mononoke-hime" (1997) have played a major part. I think I'll have to visit "Majo no takkyûbin" (1989) next to see if Miyazaki can turn my head around again. I don't tire of telling this over again: there's nothing as enlivening as returning to films and finding so much there that had gone unnoticed previously.
And I thought that "Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi" (2001) was the ultimate exploration of colour in Miyzaki's animation. How wrong was I! I can't believe, and couldn't believe, my eyes – every scene is so sumptuously and purposefully lit, allowing every detail bask in the glorious foreplay of light and shadow. The first five minutes are, as a sort of prelude, some greatly effective filmmaking: the beautifully detailed interiors, the everyday hustle and bustle of the townsfolk, the remarkable intimacy and homeliness of the narrow streets; the dank cloths, the oil lamps, the small, everyday objects laid to waste in the castle.
But what makes Miyazaki's film come alive is the heart. The heart of the film is not captive, but rather bursts through and frees Calcifer through Sophie. His characters often tread the line between light and darkness, and other opposites: youth and old age, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, night and day, blessing and curse, war and peace, life and death, freedom and captivity. It's through these opposites that the film comes alive, the characters often a kind of white space to which he pours the contradictory sentiments, coalesced by the narrative thrust where the same forces battle it out on a larger scale.