Hayao Miyazaki

Princess Mononoke made the world aware for the first time of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, and was also his most successful film in his homeland, Japan. It tells the story of a prince struck by a curse after killing a boar god. He embarks on a journey in the hope of finding the spirits of the gods of the forest to understand the reasons for his curse. It’s the most representative of Hayao Miyazaki's films as it is based on the theme of ecology. Man must stop destroying nature and do everything in his power to live in harmony with the natural environment. We also discover the central place of women in Miyazaki’s vision; women are the one’s with wisdom.

Isao Takahata is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki. But unlike his partner, Takahata simply directs his films, he doesn’t create the drawings. Released at the cinema in 1988, Grave of the Fireflies is a deeply moving film about the lives of two children trying to survive in Japan at the end of the war. Their mother has been killed in a bombing raid and they are without news of their father, who’s away at sea on a military boat. Starkly realistic drawings add to the dramatic tension. Here, Isao Takahata has made a film about the selfishness of adults who are portrayed as the true enemies of these children, who are left to suffer the effects of war twice over.

Having sold over 1 million copies in France alone, Akira is one of the most popular manga comics in the world. As a result, it’s author, Katsuhiro Otomo, is considered to be one of the great masters of the genre. The story takes place in Neo-Tokyo in 2019. Thirty years after the destruction of the city during the Third World War, a military junta reigns over a society plagued by violence and inequality. In this context, the military kidnaps young people to serve as guinea pigs for top-secret research aimed at bestowing humans with great psychic powers. At the heart of the mystery are strange little mutants, who resemble old men, and a young prisoner named Akira, who is locked up in a crypt in the bowels of the city.

Pikmin is to GTA5 what Monsters & Co is to Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch: a haven of peace and subtlety. In this game, a little cosmonaut stranded on a planet must rebuild his rocket in order to get back home. To achieve his goal, he must enlist the help of strange little creatures, who are half-radish half-ant. A fun game that raises questions about our limited resources. The player must consider the scarcity of resources and resource management, and, in order to win, the player must not fight other creatures but help them. Developed under the auspices of the brilliant Shigeru Miyamoto - Nintendo’s leading game creator and the video game equivalent of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg - Pikmin is visually pleasing and above all funny.

First released in 1952 in a shortened version, then in 1979 in a longer version, re-edited by Paul Grimault, The King and the Mockingbird is a typical example of an independent production that eventually managed to make its mark by differentiating itself from the dominant Disney model. It tells the story of a shepherdess and a chimney sweep, who struggle to protect their love for each other, in the kingdom of Takicardia ruled by the tyrannical king Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI. The screenplay was written with Jacques Prevert and was loosely based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Greatly admired by all who have seen it, The King and the Mockingbird has had a big influence on Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, who both made reference to it in several of their own films.

The Jungle Book is the universally known story of a young boy raised by animals who must one day return to his own people. Mowgli, Bagheera the black panther, Baloo the bear, Kaa the snake and Shere Khan the tiger are legendary Disney characters. The novelty of this film was that, for the first time, famous actors gave their voices to animated jungle animals (George Sandra, Louis Prima ...). “The Bare Necessities.”

In Tekkon Kinkreet, the children aren’t good, they’ve reverted back to being wild creatures to survive in a world where they have to battle against the Yakuzas. The adventures of the two orphans, Black and White, nicknamed "the cats" because of their incredible agility, first existed in manga graphic books. The American director Michael Arias directed this film in Japan. His very original drawings, which break rank with the usual manga codes (round eyes, dark rings) reinforce the dramatic narrative. Remarkable.

In Castle in the Sky, Miyazaki's third film, released in France in 2003 (and in 1986 in Japan), we find the two themes close to Hayao Miyazaki’s heart: flying objects (an airship) and a hidden world where nature is pure and all powerful (the city of Laputa). There are also legions of destructive soldiers and children bearing messages of hope. Here lies the magic of Miyazaki: making timeless, enduring films with very simple stories. Several references are made throughout to Paul Grimault’s animated film The King and the Mockingbird.

Hayao Miyazaki is a child of war traumatized by the atomic bomb, but he is also heir to a Japanese culture in which the harmonious relationship with nature is key. This sense of peace and harmony can be found in Japanese painting and prints from as early as the 17th and 18th century. For example, Hiroshige’s famous views of Edo or Hokusai’s The Wave. It is this harmonious, linear painting that goes on to influence Van Gogh: " We love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence—all the Impressionists have that in common.”

Two-time winner of the Palme d’Or and one time winner of the Special Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Shõhei Imamura is one of the most important Japanese filmmakers of the post-war period. Black Rain tells the story of a woman who has been contaminated by radioactive rain, and is trying to survive in a Japan traumatized by defeat. It is this same "black rain" that we see at the beginning of the film The Grave of the Fireflies. This “black rain” can also be interpreted as a visual metaphor for the Americanization of Japanese society that Imamura wholeheartedly denounces in his films.