The number one aspect of Studio Ghibli movies I love is how they age with me. The more I learn and the more I understand, I discover new aspects of these movies, and there have been countless times where I've been able to reference Ghibli movies when discussing ideas and events. I feel like all too often these movies are written off because they wear the mask of childrens' films, when in reality they are more insightful than a large number of the films that are marketed towards older audiences. I've never really written a review of any of Miyazaki's works on this blog, because I don't feel like I can do any of them justice in one post. So I decided I would just break them up into smaller ideas I could talk about.
*SPOILERS AHEAD.*
(Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld- Jean Baptiste Camille Corot)
In latin class we are reading the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. For those who are not familiar with it, Orpheus and Eurydice was a story written by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. In the story Orpheus and Eurydice are a couple that have just gotten married. On the wedding day Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies, her soul departing to the Underworld, ruled by Proserpina(Persephone) and Pluto. Orpheus decides that he will descend to the underworld, the realm of spirits, and bring Eurydice back. He bargains with Pluto, and Pluto says that Orpheus can have Eurydice back on one condition: when he is leading her out of the Underworld, Orpheus cannot look back at Eurydice or the deal is off. In the end Orpheus ends up looking back and Eurydice vanishes. Or that's the gist, I haven't finished translating the story yet.
So for those of you who have watched Spirited Away, some of this sounds pretty familiar, right? You might even be picturing this scene:
I noticed the parallel quite some time ago- the girl that descends into the spirit realm, makes a deal with the rulers of the place, and escapes, not being able to look back until she is out. But what I didn't realize until today, having revisited the original myth, were the implications of this parallel. Hayao Miyazaki isn't just referencing this myth for the heck of it; he's making a very strong statement. In the myth, Orpheus descends to save Eurydice, but her fate is placed in his hands and in the end he seals it for her-- she had no say, and it wasn't her fault what happened to her. Hayao Miyazaki points out the injustice of this, and counters with Chihiro. Even though she is helped by Haku, in the end her fate is her own. She's the one that saves her parents, saves Haku to an extent, and Haku doesn't lead her out of the spirit world- she walks out by herself. If she looks back, it's because she decided to, and therefore she is in charge of her own fate.
**On a related but separate topic**
I know you could go on for a long time about Hayao Miyazaki's strong female characters and the innate feminism in his movies, but I just want to make a comment on how well he balances it. For example, Chihiro isn't strong in the beginning of the movie. She doesn't know what to do, she cries a lot. And Haku-- a man--helps her. But that's okay. Just because a female character is strong doesn't mean they don't need help, that they should be hostile towards men, that they should be violent or uncaring or not have their moments of weakness. I feel like the film and tv industry hasn't found the right balance for female characters yet-- they don't want to offend people by making the women weak "damsels in distress", so they overcompensate by making them violent, unfeeling, independent characters. (I loved this article about it- "I Hate Strong Female Characters") Either way, they end up with flat characters. In reality, what makes a "strong female character" is being rounded and dynamic, and part of that is having weaknesses. I think the film industry should take some cues from Miyazaki.
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