The greatest Disney film ever

On the DVD (released through a distribution agreement between Studio
Ghibli and Disney):

It's a beautiful DVD, not just a bright, clean picture, but sound
effects and music that are crystal clear--you can hear the slight
muffling of people speaking with breathing masks on, for example, or
the terrible whirring and clicking of millions of swarming insects.

Care has been taken with the translation--little inconsistencies
that have bothered fans have been patched up the best they can ("it
was unconscious so it didn't breathe much poison" is changed to the
more plausible "it didn't seem to have breathed much poison;" "Lord
Jhil" is changed to "King Jhil" which makes sense--what princess
would have a mere lord for a father?). I miss the hair-raising
name 'God Soldier,' given to the monster raised from Pejite (the
more religiously neutral--and flavorless--"Great Warrior" is
substituted).

Patrick Stewart as Lord Yupa doesn't capture Gorou Naya's fierce
warrior growl, but he does have the regal authority, and his
inflections seem at least as eloquent. Chris Sarandon runs away with
the character of Kurotowa (he has the best lines in the film), the
three old men are played up for comedy, Alison Lohman and Uma
Thurman do fine as Nausicaa and Kushana, respectively, and the
wonderful Mark Hamill is sadly wasted in a bit role (Fear of
overexposure, perhaps? He had a major role in the previous Studio
Ghibli/Disney release, "Castle in the Sky"). The music, as far as I
can remember, is largely untinkered with (unlike the horrendous
rendering of "Laputa").

On film vs. manga:

As it turns out, "Nausicaa" the movie was conceived even before the
manga (yes, I've been checking out the bonuses--which, aside from a
mini-feature on the voice acting, and a funny little documentary on
Studio Ghibli don't amount to much); they couldn't get financing for
a film without a manga to help publicize the effort.

I think it shows: the manga is an exposition of ideas Miyazaki had
at the time, concerning ecology and man's role in relation to
nature...ideas that evolved and became more complex as the story
progressed. A magnificent achievement in terms of science fiction
literature--especially ecological science fiction literature, a far
more rare genre--and a not unmoving piece of work. "Nausicaa" the
film is necessarily a condensed, simplified version of that epic
vision, not quite perfect in its condensation and simplification
(Kushana, for one, has coarsened into an insect-hating warmonger who
strikes her soldiers, and can't count on them to stand firm when
danger threatens; Nausicaa herself shows little of the darker side
she acquires, late in the manga, though there are odd moments here
and there--more on that later).

What the manga lacked, I thought, was the kind of innovative
realization that a graphic novel might have--the kind of textured
visual style that graphic artists like, say, Art Spiegelman or Ed
Campbell or Mike Mignola, to name a few, might bring to their works.
Which is where the film excels; if the manga feels more like a first
draft artwise, the film feels like the fulfillment of that draft,
with many added touches that send a thrill of pleasure up one's
spine to see--a reflection of Nausicaa's glider sliding across an
Ohmu's glazed blue eye, for one (the blue deepens as the creature
wakes up); the awe-inspiring way the Ohmu's many sections stretch
across the desert; Miyazaki's beautiful rendering of the flying
sequences (sometimes Nausicaa's glider seems almost like an
extension of her body--her angel's wings, so to speak--it moves so
evocatively (Miyazaki would make the metaphor explicit in "On Your
Mark"--his music-video farewell to the princess)); the (as animator
chris lanier points out) lyrical, almost hypnotic pacing of the
underground caverns scene. The manga for its ideas, the film for its
images; both make a lovely pair.

On the film itself:

It's a clever idea; as (again) animator lanier points out, Miyazaki
has upended the order of things to prove a point, this one
ecological: little creatures like beetles and centipedes and worms
and spores are blown up to nightmare size, and have us at their
mercy.

But Miyazaki's concept is more than just cautionary: the heroine
does more than survive and fight--she investigates. When we first
see her, she's in the middle of her research, collecting spores.
She's already arrived at certain conclusions with regards to the
toxic plants and their deadly fumes--that given pure air and soil
and water, they cease to be toxic--but she hasn't divined the reason
why; that comes later, during the course of the story.

It's this element that makes "Nausicaa" science fiction, even more
than its premise (girl and her glider flying through poisoned
wastelands a thousand years into the future). Easy enough to think
up of a world of tomorrow, a world immersed in one science-fictional
device or another (alien invasion; robot economy; parallel
dimension; what have you)--truly intelligent SF cinema raises the
question of why things are, not just what or how (Kubrick's somewhat
overrated "2001" tries to do this--only the director kept most of
his speculations to himself, while the audience was left playing a
rather confused game of 'twenty questions'). Nausicaa tries to find
out why and eventually learns that the ecology of her world is
exactly that, an ecology--a working system of forces driven by a way
of doing things that is comprehensible if you just take the time to
listen and observe.

Most science fiction, both in film and literature, tends to use
cardboard characters; Miyazaki doesn't. I've mentioned before that
his Kushana has coarsened in adaptation, but if you don't think of
the original, onscreen she's actually quite complicated--bitter over
her horrible mutilations, she responds with a wry smile for most
occasions, even the most threatening, as if saying: "this is bad,
but I've been through worse." And there is a hint of a questing soul
in her, of someone who also asks why things are the way they are;
it's this part of her that responds to Nausicaa, a kind of kindred
spirit seeking to, as she puts it, "get to know her better."

Nausicaa herself seems like the epitome of the good-girl heroine,
but there are cracks in the façade: when she and Asbel witness the
ruins of Pejite, his response is to lament the once-magnificent
buildings; her response is to lament the dead Ohmu. She's shown time
and time again that she's a caring, loving person who is cared for
and loved by others in return (she, for one, is the hardest-working
princess I've ever seen, fixing up her subject's windmills and
finding Ohmu armor for them to work on--a real micromanager), but
her statement regarding the Ohmu--with its seeming unconcern for the
probable dead--chilled me; it suggested that there are sides to her,
ways on her part of looking at things that I don't quite grasp.

There's also an intriguing single-mindedness about her--when Asbel
speculates that the poisoned wastelands need to at least be
contained, she accuses him of being like the Torumekians; when he
responds hotly that they aren't the least bit alike, she tells him
it's a long day tomorrow, they need to go to sleep. Later, she
throws the same accusation at the Pejite, who ask, not unjustly,
what are they to do--live as Torumekian slaves? She responds by
shaking the question aside. Nausicaa seems to be talking on a
different level with other people--not necessarily a superior one,
just different, one that perhaps the insect creatures of the
poisoned forest understand better. For all her humaneness, there is
something inhuman about her; you might say she's Miyazaki's idea of
how a real angel might act--full of high-flown views and an
appreciation of the big picture that isn't always benign, or even
sympathetic towards merely human interests.

Beyond the intelligence, beyond the subtlety, however, "Nausicaa"
has something few science-fiction films haven't--heart, an enormous
amount of it. If Nausicaa at times seems remote and even
disingenuous in her replies, most of the time she's totally, utterly
lovable--the kind of beautiful young girl who can move you, inspire
you, even arouse you into giving your life for her sake, knowing
full well she'll do the same for you.

"Nausicaa" has been considered Miyazaki's masterpiece for so long
it's been fashionable to put it down--to pick a different film as
his best and greatest. Watching it again, on this gloriously clean
DVD transfer should clear away all doubts--this is Miyazaki's finest
work, arguably the greatest science fiction film ever made, and
easily the best that Disney--whose recent output looks rather
malodorously small-minded in comparison--has ever released.

(Portions first published in High Life Magazine, May 2005)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)