When you love film as much as I do, you will come sooner or later to the oeuvre of Studio Ghibli — the studio responsible for those fantastic Japanese animated films that seem to occupy a world of their own with their heartfelt whimsy. Kiki’s Delivery Service. My Neighbor Totoro. Spirited Away. So many others. The master of these films is Hayao Miyazaki, of course, but I have great affection for the studio’s other director, Isao Takahata, who has given us Grave of the Fireflies, perhaps one of the best films ever made about war. I saw his Only Yesterday [1991] this week, and I am increasingly of the opinion that while Miyazaki has a good hold on our fantasies, it is Takahata who has his pulse on every day life. In a sense, he is Studio Ghibli’s Yasujiro Ozu. I finished Only Yesterday teary-eyed because it captured so well many of the intricacies and nuances of growing up, as a ten-year-old navigating the triumphs and heartaches of childhood and even as a grown person who suddenly has a chance to take a decisive fork in life. One of my favorite sequences in the film has Taeko, our protagonist, falling in love for the first time with a boy in her school. The way both evade their mutual attraction, and the way they try to communicate, in a very haphazard way, the exact same thing is captured in a scene that captures perfectly the joy of what it means to find love at such a tender age. The ending sequence is also something handled deftly, and weaves so well the two narratives of the film — of Taeko as a young woman coming to terms with her true self, and of her memories as a young girl. In this film, Takahata demonstrates once more, as he did in Fireflies, that animation is not mere child’s play: it can illustrate with such nuance adult concerns and adult issues, too, and we’re all the better for it.
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When you love film as much as I do, you will come sooner or later to the oeuvre of Studio Ghibli — the studio responsible for those fantastic Japanese animated films that seem to occupy a world of their own with their heartfelt whimsy. Kiki’s Delivery Service. My Neighbor Totoro. Spirited Away. So many others. The master of these films is Hayao Miyazaki, of course, but I have great affection for the studio’s other director, Isao Takahata, who has given us Grave of the Fireflies, perhaps one of the best films ever made about war. I saw his Only Yesterday [1991] this week, and I am increasingly of the opinion that while Miyazaki has a good hold on our fantasies, it is Takahata who has his pulse on every day life. In a sense, he is Studio Ghibli’s Yasujiro Ozu. I finished Only Yesterday teary-eyed because it captured so well many of the intricacies and nuances of growing up, as a ten-year-old navigating the triumphs and heartaches of childhood and even as a grown person who suddenly has a chance to take a decisive fork in life. One of my favorite sequences in the film has Taeko, our protagonist, falling in love for the first time with a boy in her school. The way both evade their mutual attraction, and the way they try to communicate, in a very haphazard way, the exact same thing is captured in a scene that captures perfectly the joy of what it means to find love at such a tender age. The ending sequence is also something handled deftly, and weaves so well the two narratives of the film — of Taeko as a young woman coming to terms with her true self, and of her memories as a young girl. In this film, Takahata demonstrates once more, as he did in Fireflies, that animation is not mere child’s play: it can illustrate with such nuance adult concerns and adult issues, too, and we’re all the better for it.

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