Final Blossay: Memory

Memory is something that humans rely on to make their decisions or to relive memories of happiness or sadness. We remember things which is why we remember whose birthday it is or what our sisters favorite color is. A memory can also recall a moment that truly changed our lives a moment that made us who we are today.  The films I have chosen to write on memory are Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…Spring, Ikiru, Sandakan 8 and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. All of these films feature characters whose stories are truly affected by their past and their own memories.  

            Ikiru is an obvious film that shows the life of the main character and how he reflected on his own life at the discovery that his life will end.  When someone hears that their life may end they reflect on their own past and on what they want to do with the time left. Watanabe sits in a funk when he learns that he will soon die of cancer. We see Watanabe’s reflection on his own life and life as he raised his son alone after the death of his wife. Watanabe’s memories of how he raised his son changed how he lived his life after his untold diagnosis. Watanabe and his son have a strained relationship to begin with, when Watanabe learns that he is dying he thinks of how he cared for his son and for how he wishes his son would care for him. When Watanabe thinks of his son when his appendix was taken out as a child he thinks of how he wants to be cared for and how absent he was as a parent.

            Death and memories are highly associated in Ikiru. We see Watanabe and his son in front of him in the car leaving Watanabe’s wife’s funeral. We see Watanabe’s sad face, with his open eyes that is the main facial expression in the film. We see his son looking so blank, so confused but also filled with emotion. Watanabe holds and cradles his son, knowing how much their life has changed now that his wife has died. When Watanabe cradles his son it shows a new beginning a start of their lives as just father and son. This memory stuck out to me because of the new life that it symbolized for Watanabe, he held his son and was his sons only provider. This moment is shown throughout the film, when Watanabe and his son are in scenes together. We see Watanabe not being the greatest father figure in the flashback scenes in the film.   

            Most of Sandakan 8 is Osaki telling her story as her life of a prostitute when she was a young woman. She tells her story and is reliving her story during her interview and discussion with Keiko. While she relives her story she gets emotionally attached to Keiko. Another reason she gets emotional is because of her new attachment to Keiko and the fact that so many people abandoned her because of her past with prostitution. Reliving memories of the pain and sadness that she felt when she lived in the house in her youth created such a horrid memory of her own past.

            Osaki tells her story throughout the film, we tells her story of how she survived as a prostitute in her youth. Those memories of her pain and of how much she worked shaped who she was. Not only did being a prostitute change her because of her experiences working but it shaped her life after she left Sandakan 8. When Osaki goes back to live with her brother he mistreats her simply because she was a prostitute.  She was isolated from her own family that wanted her safety and happiness more than anything else. I remember when she went on the boat to leave and her brother ran to the top of the mountain just to watch her sail away. Where is that brother, that wanted to say he last goodbye to his sister? After she slept with so many men she was discarded from her own family. She worked so hard to make sure that she and her family were able to live a better life. Her brother discards her and wants her out of her life because she was a prostitute. After she leaves her brothers home she marries a man and has a child, a son. When her husband dies, her son lets her take care of him and then after he marries and has his own family he disregards her, and sends her an allowance as his only way to have a relationship with him. Her decision, no not even her decision but being forced into prostitution ruined Osaki’s family relationships and her reputation as a woman in society.

            Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon shows Jen in her captivity with Lo. We see Jen and Lo together we see the love between them and the intimacy in their relationship. We see Jen not as a fighter but as a sensitive woman in love. Jen and Lo have a passionate connection that we only see in flashback scenes in the desert. We see Jen as a vulnerable woman, which is a complete 180 from the strong fighter that she is after she is trained by Jade Fox. As I personally watched the film I began to warm up to Jen when I saw how vulnerable a character that she is and watching a woman in love shows a different side to a tough woman, though it is a cliché. We would view Jen differently if we did not see her time with Lo in the cave in the desert. We also learn of the troubles that Jen feels towards her own family. This foreshadows to the broken relationship that she has with Jade Fox. When we see Jen as a woman in love we see how she could grow so attached to Shu Lien. Jen is someone that wanted to be nurtured and loved, not thrown into battle or into a forced a marriage.

            Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…Spring tells a story of life lessons, youth, and dedication. We see a young monk who tortures animals by tying a rock to a fish so it sinks to the bottom of a pond, tying a string around a frog so tightly that we see air puff up between the tight string, and the boy ties a string around the neck of the snake, making it hard to breathe. The animals torture is a foreshadowing of the murder that the monk commits later in life. Would we view the monk differently if he committed the murder, and we didn’t know of his torturing past? Is the torturing of the animals showing us what he is truly capable of?   Was the animal torture just a curiosity inside of him? Or was he truly rebelling from the path of peace and enlightenment that he was going on? When the young monk thinks of how his actions ended up killing the fish and the snake, he cries. After he kills his wife he later reacts emotionally like he did as a child. I wonder is he thinking back to that time as a child, when he was so vulnerable and so distraught, after the realization that he killed two people. We also see the pattern reemerge when the new young monk, is torturing animals in an even crueler way. Filling the animals mouths with rocks and watching them drown and suffer in the pond. When we see this, we see that the cycle will continue and maybe it will even grow worse.  Since we knew the past of the old monk does this change how we view the younger monk while torturing the animals?

            All four films show the past of the protagonists or in some cases the antagonists of the films. Does what they did in their past affect what they did in the films? How do they react to what they have done in the past? How does the audience react with knowing, or not knowing what has happened before the film even started? Like most films these films started off with the unknown, we did not immediately know who the characters were or what previously had happened to the characters. As we learned of the characters past and memories we learned more about them and about the relationships and hardships that each character went through in their life before the film.  

            Another theme in the memories of all for films is that it showed our main characters in such vulnerable places in their life. We see signs of weakness and of moments when they didn’t make the greatest decisions, moments when they might regret something or moments when they had to make huge moral decisions that changed their lives and the lives of those that surrounded them. When you think of a weak moment in your life it is easy to feel vulnerable again. We see this when Watanabe thinks of leaving his son after he goes into surgery, or when Osaki thinks of the first time she has sex as a prostitute, when Jen decides that she has to go back home and leave Lo and when the monk thinks of the animals that he has hurt.

            In conclusion memories affect everyone, not only in these films but in our world. Memories help shape the experiences we have and how we react to certain situations and to people we communicate with. The four films that I wrote about dealt well with memories and how they affected the characters’ lives. I learned so much about memory and storytelling while analyzing these four very different films. 

Howl's Moving Castle: Blossay 3

Howls Moving Castle is a Japanese anime film by Hayao Miyazaki.

            I will start this blossay with a summary of Howl’s Moving Castle, for those of you who haven’t watched this film. The protagonist of the film is Sophie, a young hat maker who is very responsible. When eighteen year old Sophie is on the way to visit her sister she meets a young attractive wizard named Howl. Another witch named the Witch of the Waste sees Howl and Sophie, and makes her an old woman. Sophie is distraught and wants to find a cure to the curse; she then heads off to the Wastes. At the Wastes she meets a living scarecrow who takes her to Howl’s castle. The castle is energized and powered by a fire demon named Calcifer. Calcifer is also under a spell which keeps him energizing the house and to hide the house from outside people. Sophie and Calcifer want to work together to break each other’s curses. Sophie decides to work as a maid in the castle to find a way to break the spell and to help Calcifer who is old and ill.

            While Sophie is at the castle working her home country is at war with its neighboring land, after the Prince of their land is missing. The war is getting bad and the father of the prince the King asks Howl to morph into other creatures to help him fight the war. Howl wants Sophie to pretend to be his mother to go to the king and confess that one of Howl’s allies is a coward.

            Sophie runs into the Witch of the Waste and Suliman the kings magic advisor, drains the witches powers. Suliman tells Sophie that Howl’s powers will also be taken if he does not help out their side. Sophie tells Howl and Howl transforms into a birdlike creature to hide from Suliman, after Suliman attempts to trap him.

            Howl makes multiple transformations to help fight with the war, which is making it more difficult to come back to human form. Sophie and Howl have become very close and is scared that he will leave them. Sophie also fears that Howl will lose the ability to be a human as well. Among all of the troubles occurring during the war Calcifer gets very sick and weak, after eating a bug that creates the castle to be visible.

            The country is attacked and stores are being bombed. A local flowershop is almost attacked before Howl saves it. After this he saves Calcifer and takes Calcifer from the fire ruining the castle. Howl is also very sick and Sophie cares for him and Calcifer. Sophie offers Calcifer a piece of her hair to give him enough strength to make it a bit longer. Howl also gives a piece of his hear to the dying demon to help save him. The Witch of the Waste grabs the heart and burns it in her hand. Sophie pours water on the burning heart and Calcifer loses his powers for good.  Sophie learns of how Howl and Calcifer meet; Howl eats Calciefer and gains his heart. Sophie finds Howl near death in bird form. She runs to the witch and asks for Howls heart. She gets the heart gives it to Howl and frees Calcifer. She thanks the scarecrow for his help and he reveals that he is the prince. Everyone flies off together happily after the war has ended.

            What ultimately drew me to this film was the imagery in the film. When you see the castle for the first time your breath is truly taken away. The film is filled with amazing shots and proves that cinematography can apply for animated films as well. Princess Mononoke is a phenomenal example of beautiful cinematography. Both films have amazing images, of simple fields with grass blowing in the wind or of phenomenal structures and buildings. Both films also show amazing images of just the characters faces, their hair blowing in the wind in a melodramatic way. Even though these films are animated we still see the emotional depth on the faces of the characters.

            There are obvious similarities between Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, they are both anime films by Miyazaki. Both films show a high power, such as a wizard and a God who is given much control over the world these people live in.  Howl is a powerful wizard that has many people look up to him. Just as the Dear God and Lady Eboshi. Power is something that gets to the head of Lady Eboshi and something that creates a feud between Irontown and the forest. Conflict is something that we see in cinema now and something that has been and will be in film until movies are not made anymore.

            Another obvious connection is the slight love story that is in both Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke is the relationships between our protagonists. Sophie and Howl have a spark and a need to care for one another and feel the need to protect each other. Ashitaka and San though they are on opposite sides of the war their own people are fighting they care for one another even though their own separate sides of a war.

            Animals are a main theme in both of these films as well. San was literally raised by wolves and acts more as an animal than the human that she truly is. Howl morphs into different animals throughout the film. Animals are symbols of a new type of creature and even a new form of communication, this can be a barrier between two worlds that aren't communicating well. This is a theme not only with the animalistic ways of Howl and San but of the problems with communication between the two worlds that fight in both films.   

            This film heavily reminded me of The Wizard of Oz. Sophie a young woman who is gentle and kind reminds me of Dorothy Gale, the protagonist of The Wizard of Oz. The Witch of the Waste is in some way envious of Sophie’s beauty and youth, just like how the Wicked Witch of the West seeks revenge on Dorothy. Though the Wicked Witch of the West doesn't seek the youth of Dorothy she does want her dead after the accidental death of her sister. After Sophie is cursed and becomes an old woman she wonders off to the Wastes and encounters a scarecrow, who is alive, just like the scarecrow that Dorothy meets on her way to Oz. After Sophie is cursed she and the scarecrow go to Howl’s castle to have him reverse the spell, which is similar to Dorothy going to Oz to meet the Wizard and to send her home.  Also given that Howl’s castle moves is a metaphor of some sort for the Dorothy’s home moving from Kansas to Oz. Sophie also returns home on the plane just as Dorothy does on the hot air balloon. 

            In conclusion both films are similar not only because of the director and the fact that they are anime films but they both feature such similar films. Both feature a fantastical element and a true story of fighting and war. Conflict comes into play with these films and they show how much communication truly matters, not only in speak but in how they act and go through the way of leadership.