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Author Topic: Animation Education  (Read 23768 times)

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #70 on: April 18, 2017, 02:57:19 PM »
The Cat Returns (2002)



What a bonkers film. One of the wonderful things about the animation medium is that it offers potential for all kinds of stories that would not work in a live-action setting. The Cat Returns is such a film, embroiled in so much absurdity and fantasy that it needs that wondrous disconnect from our reality.

Haru (Chizuru Ikewaki) is an average, unassuming high-schooler nervous about boys and a complete clutz. One day she saves a cat from being hit by a car and the cat turns out to not only talk, but to be Lune (Takayuki Yamada), prince of cats. For her act of bravery, he offers her his hand in marriage and due to a misunderstanding, he believes she accepts his proposal.

Yup. Bonkers. Haru thinks this is completely absurd but when cats start showing up and showering her with gifts, Haru has to saddle up and faces this problem. The film is self-aware enough to constantly prod at how absurd it all is, but it fully embraces the world and fantasy of a kingdom of cats and the weird politics of the cat world.

The film ties into Whisper of the Heart, but quite loosely and they exist on two ends of the extreme, Whisper being much more grounded than the fanciful outings of The Cat Returns. It might be Studio Ghibli’s most absurd film, an absolutely goofy outing played up for laughs.



And that is to the film’s credit as the comedy makes it easier to buy into how absurd the whole thing is. Constant gags and pratfalls mixed in with a generally absurd idea make the whole piece work as an absurdist tale that isn’t supposed to be taken all that seriously.

The downside is that this might be the most inconsequential Ghibli film. It lacks the dramatic beats or emotional moments of most of their films. That’s not to say the film is simple or childish; far from it. There’s an elegance to this level of absurdity, just don’t expect an emotional payoff.

On the animation front, it doesn’t always hold up. Haru’s face often seems oversimplified, but once those fantasy elements drop in and the lush backgrounds enter the picture, there’s no doubting how gorgeous this film is. And it’s a film that works because of the animation, playing up the goofy bits and making them much more palatable than live-action ever could.

By the end, The Cat Returns is an endearing film, the kind of bizarre, absurd outing that could only exist in animation. It’s likely considered unimportant in Ghibli’s body of work, but it’s a reminder that not every film has to be a serious, emotionally investing affair. Sometimes films can be silly and there’s nothing wrong with that.

oldkid

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #71 on: April 18, 2017, 05:28:25 PM »
While I wouldn't put it among Ghibli's best, I adore this film.  It is silly and the Baron is so charming and it doesn't overstay it's welcome.  Great stuff.
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Sandy

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #72 on: April 19, 2017, 03:07:26 PM »
I saw this with oldkid's family at my first Filmspotter's meetup! Happy memories. :)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #73 on: April 19, 2017, 03:39:59 PM »
How often do you guys do these meetups? I am jealous, I want to tell you you're wrong in person too...
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oldkid

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #74 on: April 19, 2017, 06:04:43 PM »
I've met with Sandy... twice, I think?  When she drove up to Portland.  I met Bondo once when he came through town, and I met Ferris a few times, because he's just across the river from me.  Ferris and I saw Paris, Texas together and Anomilisa.

Sandy, didn't we watch Nausicaa at that visit, too?
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Sandy

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #75 on: April 20, 2017, 02:11:59 PM »
Yes, Nausicaa was the other film!

And we did meet twice. The first time I was working in the church's kitchen with Mrs. oldkid and you came in and visited for a little bit. I got to know her better than you. :)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #76 on: April 20, 2017, 03:57:55 PM »
Sandy, can you confirm that the beard is indeed real?
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pixote

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Re: Animation Education [The Black Cauldron]
« Reply #77 on: July 05, 2017, 11:53:53 PM »


The Black Cauldron  (Ted Berman & Richard Rich, 1985)

The whole modern history of animation could have been so different if Disney hadn't f—ked up this film so much.

I haven't read Lloyd Alexander's source novels (though I've always wanted to and I will eventually), but I can't imagine they're very well served here. The movie feels like it was written by a dozen people, working independently of each other, with no real story sense aside from what they gleaned from earlier animated films. So much of The Black Cauldron feels like imitation without understanding — like when a computer translates English to Chinese and back to English. There's very little rhythm to the narrative, which always feels secondary to the character designs.

Where the film excels is in the dark moments — moments which I suspect have been unfairly blamed for the movie's lack of success. Seeing a drop of blood in a Disney animated film is terrifically exciting, and the imagery is its best in these darker moment, especially with the legitimately scary renderings of the Horned King and his army of the dead. Some of the visual effects don't quite work — at times I thought maybe I'd forgotten to put on my 3D glasses — but it's mostly a very good looking film. If only the story didn't feel like such a mishmash of The Sword in the Stone, Sleeping Beauty, He-Man, The Smurfs, Thundercats, The Last Unicorn, Lord of the Rings, and the rest.

Not for nothing, but Elmer Bernstein's score is maybe the most robust to ever grace an animated children's film. I mean, seriously. I'll be curious to compare Jerry Goldsmith's work on Mulan.

Grade: C+

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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #78 on: July 06, 2017, 04:20:42 AM »
I have no memory of the story, but I have always had a soft spot for that movie as the only Disney horror movie that will ever exist. To an eight year old at night with all the lights off it can get terrifying.

I don't get your animation history opening line though. What would have changed?
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pixote

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #79 on: July 06, 2017, 04:40:18 AM »
I have no memory of the story, but I have always had a soft spot for that movie as the only Disney horror movie that will ever exist. To an eight year old at night with all the lights off it can get terrifying.

I don't get your animation history opening line though. What would have changed?

I might change my answer once I get through the 80s (and also watch the Waking Sleeping Beauty documentary), but I sense in The Black Cauldron the desire to take risks and turn animation in new directions — similar perhaps to what Studio Ghibli was doing around the same time, or what Don Bluth achieved with The Secret of NIMH — with a willingness to tell more mature stories and not pretend kids in the 1980s were still the kids of the 1950s. And I think that, with the failure of The Black Cauldron, those tendencies were scapegoats and taken off the table as future possibilities (even though the mess of a script was the real culprit), and Disney retreated into the likes of Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Co., before getting its groove back with The Little Mermaid.

But what if, instead, The Black Cauldron had achieved its potential and been the kind of success that The Little Mermaid was later on? What kind of films would Disney have made in the years after, to capitalize on that same sort of success? Instead of a string of a musical fantasies, could the second golden era instead have been a darker and bloodier affair?

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