The font of animation wonderment that is Studio Ghibli is more than just director Hayao Miyazaki (now retired) and his son Goro. Step forward Isao Takahata, whose folk-legend based The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, was nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year’s American Academy Awards. Princess Kaguya only amassed $527,000 at the US box office during its theatrical run. I confidently predict it will do better in the United Kingdom, judging by the enthusiastic response it got at a packed paying preview screening on a Monday night.
Although Studio Ghibli films are family entertainment in their native Japan, here they are the animation equivalent of arthouse cinema. Not that they deal with difficult themes, but they don’t elicit easy laughs and emotions. In fact, there is an act of violence in Princess Kaguya that is shocking to watch or more specifically to hear - the sound effects are as sparingly but expertly crafted as the animation. The plot might be escapist, but some of the scenes aren’t.
Co-written by Takahata and Riko Sakaguchi, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is reminiscent of Pinocchio, inasmuch as it begins with a child born inside a pipe of bamboo to a childless elderly bamboo cutter. When she first appears, as a miniature doll-like girl, the bamboo cutter is amazed. She resembles the woman that she will grow into, but for the moment fits neatly into the bamboo cutter’s cupped hands. He takes her home to his wife, who immediately wants to mother the tiny girl. The bamboo cutter is reluctant to give her up, just enough for us to be charmed, but not enough to think him creepy. When the woman carries the small girl outside, she becomes a baby. For her part, the bamboo cutter’s wife suddenly starts to lactate. She has no need of a wet nurse, but can feed the child herself, and bares a breast to do so (you won’t see that in Bambi). ‘L’il Bamboo’ as one of the neighbourhood children calls her, shuffles along making the same movements as the frog that she watches. She takes her behavioural cue from the animals around her. For his part, the bamboo cutter keeps her away from his sharp instruments. L’il Bamboo grows up in spurts, like bamboo itself, and is soon able to walk. She wanders around with her front covered up but her buttocks exposed, which I assume is the Japanese way.
L’il Bamboo makes friends with the local children. There is an entertaining scene where the children call her in one direction, whilst the bamboo cutter calls her towards him. L’il Bamboo spends time with an older boy, Sutemaru. At one point, separated from the group, they steal two melons from a melon patch. L’il Bamboo drops her melon. A passerby looks at the fallen piece of fruit with amusement before restoring it to the melon grove. Sutemaru shares his fruit with L’il Bamboo. In this scene, Takahata is keen to show how the fruit is divided up, cut in half – the first half is for their friends – and half again. L’il Bamboo gnaws gratefully at her quarter melon.
The bamboo hunter continues to work in the forest and finds gold in a tree, which he quickly acquires. Then he discovers a whole range of gowns. It is clear to him what he must do. He must move L’il Bamboo to a palace and raise her as a princess.
L’il Bamboo is indeed taken away from home. She awakens in a wagon and finds people on either side keen to see her. She greets her new home with enthusiasm, seeing it as a place with much to exercise her. But she also has a tutor, Lady Sagami, who is hired to make a noble woman out of her, teaching her how to bow, move on her knees (without kneepads) and play a musical instrument, the sato. In Lady Sagami’s company, L’il Bamboo is unruly, but when the bamboo cutter is present, she is as good as gold. The bamboo cutter arranges for her to be named; three days of feasting follows. Then L’il Bamboo, now called Princess Kaguya after the light, becomes an eligible bachelorette, with five rich and mostly handsome suitors to contend with.
In the middle section of the film, Kaguya resents being thought of as an object. Whilst the feast takes place, she cannot have fun. She does however make a run for it and discovers the bamboo forest of her youth is barren and colourless. Has the bamboo cutter taken the life out of the mountain? No, it will grow back. Kaguya is shown the pink buds of a tiny flower. This gives her hope.
At the palace, the five young men present themselves, comparing Kaguya – whom they have not seen – to a number of rare treasures. Unimpressed, and frankly put out, Kaguya asks each one to fetch the treasure that they name, hoping that she’ll never see them again. However, one prince returns with the jewelled tree of which he spoke, whose glistening precious gem fruit reflects the sunlight, until that is its true nature becomes clear.
But what of Sutemaru? Kaguya sees him running away from some men. Sutemaru is transfixed by her, and she by him, until the men catch up with him. There is a song that Kaguya knew even as a young girl (something about beasts and bugs; it won’t be a Top Ten smash). She makes a discovery about herself that seals her fate.
At two-and-a-quarter hours, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya drags by the end, but there is always something to delight us. The climax in which Kaguya and Sutemaru literally take flight leads us to E.T. territory, not so much ‘phone home’, as ‘oh no, not the 15th August’. When you see how Kaguya’s people arrive, you might think of Greek gods, or Prince Barin from Flash Gordon (let’s stick with Greek gods). Once a cloak is put upon Kaguya, it will have a devastating effect – or will it?
The animation isn’t what you’d call full canvas. Like an artist using watercolours, Takahata uses the white of the paper as occasional background. Buildings and fields are sketched rather than fully realised and Kaguya can seem like a character from a strip cartoon, the vivid, lively centre of the frame. It is very far from computer animation, yet the movements of the characters are more life-like. Every once in a while a butterfly flutters past; not as a cute supporting character, rather instead reinforcing the sense of natural beauty. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is about not presuming to know how things should turn out, but to enjoy the wonder of the world as it is. You might think that’s sappy – why do you think it starts with bamboo?
Reviewed at Prince Charles Cinema, off Leicester Square, Central London, Monday 16 March 2015, 18:45, preview screening, Japanese language version; with thanks to Flickering Myth and Think Jam publicity
