April 29: From Up on Poppy Hill/Kokuriko-zaka kara (2011 -- Gorō Miyazaki)

★★★★★

This film has lots of what I like to see when go to a Studio Ghibli project.  I enjoy the lush visuals, the somewhat stilted characters, the unlikely narrative, and the Japanese cuteness.  At Ghibli, these elements always seem to come together to create something that’s deeply fleshed out, internally consistent as well as absolutely unique and absorbing.  To watch From Up on Poppy Hill is to enter into an aesthetic space that exists only in this particular film, and while you’re there, you give yourself to its complete world with its own imaginative rules.  The what-if atmosphere is warm and tender, not only arising from the rich imagery of the port, the gardens and the clubhouse, but also from the adolescent fantasy that informs the movie.  From Up on Poppy Hill has hard-working teens, gallant teens striving against obtuse adults, teens consumed with the excitement of learning, and teens dealing with romantic awakenings.  And all of this to a nostalgic soundtrack that harkens back to accessible 60s jazz and some pop.  The film is a satisfying immersion in a deeply imagined and rendered world.

It’s not hard to imagine an element of meta-signification in the film either.  Aside from the teen romance that is fraught with complication, From Up on Poppy Hill deals with the tension between the past and now.  The baroque clubhouse is facing demolition to make way for the new era that the 1964 Tokyo Olympics will usher in, but heroes Umi and Shun have a vision for the restoration of the old building, partly gleaned from the beauty of the renovated boarding house she helps run.  The film calls for preserving the past as we move into the future.  This is the same approach that director Gorō Miyazaki takes in making this film.  The son of Ghibli master Hayao Miyazaki, Gorō builds on the achievement of his father rather than abandoning the Ghibli approach to go in a different direction.  The rich visuals and intensity of imagination he brings here extend the approach to anime that his father has developed, and Gorō even has his father Hayao as a scriptwriter, ensuring that From Up on Poppy Hill builds on this tradition.  And Gorō succeeds convincingly  from up on his own Poppy Hill  by following  in the footsteps of those who worked before him in this absorbing film about respecting tradition.