How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 30 July 2013
This article is a review of FROM UP ON POPPY HILL.
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[The version I saw was the Japanese language/English subtitled one.]
“Now, don’t be shy, shall we discuss existentialism?” Philosophy Club President
Now it can’t be easy following in the footsteps of your animation-directing maestro of a father. Hayao Miyazaki has conjured up a profusion of the most sublime drawn feature films in history (e.g. MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO, PORCO ROSSO, PRINCESS MONONOKE, PONYO). Son Goro Miyazaki stumbled out of the block at his first step; TALES FROM EARTHSEA was a mediocre telling, lacking the wonder and sublime characters peopling his father’s work. The shadow is long and deep. Of course it may be unfair to compare their work, but the reasoning is that Goro is arguably ploughing the same field, rather than going it alone and striving to make his own mark. We have a similar theme of the old being replaced by the new, in the name of progress devoid of any likely actual improvement to lives. Hayao has contributed to the screenplay for FROM UP ON POPPY HILL, but the feel of his sure and imaginative sensibility are not here.
“Now, don’t be shy, shall we discuss existentialism?” Philosophy Club President
Now it can’t be easy following in the footsteps of your animation-directing maestro of a father. Hayao Miyazaki has conjured up a profusion of the most sublime drawn feature films in history (e.g. MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO, PORCO ROSSO, PRINCESS MONONOKE, PONYO). Son Goro Miyazaki stumbled out of the block at his first step; TALES FROM EARTHSEA was a mediocre telling, lacking the wonder and sublime characters peopling his father’s work. The shadow is long and deep. Of course it may be unfair to compare their work, but the reasoning is that Goro is arguably ploughing the same field, rather than going it alone and striving to make his own mark. We have a similar theme of the old being replaced by the new, in the name of progress devoid of any likely actual improvement to lives. Hayao has contributed to the screenplay for FROM UP ON POPPY HILL, but the feel of his sure and imaginative sensibility are not here.
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To give Goro credit, he has taken a few tentative steps in the direction towards a compelling plot. The characters…are…well…we’ll come to them. Opening on a girl raising semaphore flags in her garden on a hill overlooking the sea, we then witness the morning ritual of her preparing breakfast for the household. We are at first unsure where the parents are. A grandmother is theoretically head of the home, it is really Umi Matsuzaki who runs things; impressive considering she is also a student. Kudos should go for the ocean vista often being the backdrop to conversations and meditative moments, providing a relaxing calm. One can tell the surrounding town is meant to be an idyll, though we don’t get enough of a sense.
There are two story seams:
- The melancholia of Umi coming to terms with the death of her father. He was a supply ship captain during the Korean War, and was killed at sea.
- The uplifting tale of students attempting to save their capacious, ramshackle and beloved clubhouse from demolition.
These two notions of tragedy and hope intertwining are ambitious, all the more for being tied to a cartoon, where the nuance of human expression is curtailed. However, while the idea of this grief is moving, the execution is less so. Back to that mention of characterisation… there is too little of it here. The focus on Umi can be contrasted with KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE as an example of how it’s done with aplomb. She feels like a blank canvas here, waiting for details to be added. The same goes for the other lead, Shun Kazama, a boy at the school who has a crush on Umi. Shun is the head of the student newspaper and main organiser for the save the clubhouse campaign. He also doesn’t feel close to being fleshed out. So while everything moves along with charm, there is little brio to warm to.
Perhaps the ultimate problem is that FROM UP ON POPPY HILL has the tenor of false nostalgia; someone who hasn’t lived through the mid-1960s lackadaisically imagines what it was like.
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