HAYAO MIYAZAKI
One of my earliest memories is of dragging a stuffed Totoro toy around Japan on a family reunion trip when I was 2. It's a miracle my older sister and I never wore out our VHS copy of KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE. I still think most of my childhood nightmares and fears—who am I kidding, most of my current ones too—can be directly traced to SPIRITED AWAY. And then at some point, as I hungrily made my way through countless other Studio Ghibli films over the years—each one opening my mind in a new and incredible way—I grew up. But this past weekend, I stepped into a room and found myself in a tunnel surrounded by a makeshift magical forest, greeted by the twinkling melody of Joe Hisaishi's MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO theme, a tide of excited little kids rushing past me. And wow. I was one of them.
Just one glance at the brand-spanking-new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures gift shop makes it clear that the Hayao Miyazaki exhibit is the highlight of the museum, given the abundance of dust bunny plushies and No-Face figurines. My family and I finally made it to the exhibit on Mother's Day, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of artwork on display: sketches, storyboards, and frames that are each a masterpiece on their own. It’s so easy to take these films for granted; it's nearly impossible to process the fact that something like PRINCESS MONONOKE is made up of thousands of forest scapes that impossibly capture the way sunlight hits moss, or that the clouds that roll by in the background of THE WIND RISES are so painterly and emotionally evocative they're worth framing. The walls are also peppered with short poems Miyazaki wrote for his team as inspiration in the creative process, and as I read, I thought about how frankly absurd it is that every word out of this man's mouth is an instantly quotable nugget of wisdom.
When we were reading one of these letters, describing the dual beauty and brutality of nature, my dad explained to me the Japanese sentiment of evanescence, epitomized by the cultural attitude toward the falling of cherry blossoms, beautiful and fleeting (natsukashi). Miyazaki's films always capture a tension like this—between man and nature, childhood and adulthood, creation and destruction, old and new—but those tensions are never resolved. Because his movies are far more interested in the bittersweet complexity of life, watching them means simultaneously cherishing how they've helped us grow and reaching for the lost time in our lives they represent. But when my mom, sister and I all look at characters like Mei and Satsuki and see a bit ourselves. And when we lie in the "grass" carpet of this exhibit to watch the clouds go by like Kiki, we realize that kid is never fully gone. If you can, find your way to the Academy museum for this special experience, and take some time to appreciate a truly timeless and transcendent body of work.
—Alicia Devereaux, Development Assistant
