Flights of FANCY

ONE OF THE biggest film events in Asia, the Tokyo International Film Festival wrapped up last Thursday after screening more than 100 works by both new and veteran directors.
This latest edition not only presented new films from Japan and other countries around the world but also incorporated a special programme, “The World of Mamoru Hosoda”, showing all the works of the 49-year-old director who has sometimes been dubbed “the next Hayao Miyazaki”.
Hosada started his career with Toei Animation, working on the anime series “Dragon Ball” and “Sailor Moon”, and directing the television series “Digimon Adventures”. Well known throughout the industry, he drew the attention of the media when he was appointed by Studio Ghibli to direct the 2004 animated fantasy “Howl’s Moving Castle”, an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ novel. He later left the project, handing over the reins to Hayao Miyazaki.
“The reason why it didn’t work out well was because the people around me expected me to create the kind of film Hayao would create. But I had my own thoughts about how the film should be. A gap started to appear in the philosophy of the people around me and myself and it became a challenge for us to work together as a team. So we decided to go our own ways. However, there were no ill feelings between Studio Ghibli and I,” Hosoda explains when asked about the split.
“Hayao Miyazaki has been my hero since I was very young. I was a great fan of Miyazaki as a creator, but now I am a director. It’s not possible for me to continue saying that he is my big hero and work as a director at the same time. As long as we are creating the same kind of film, we are rivals. It doesn’t make sense for me to create the same kind of animation films as he.”
“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” in 2006, followed by “Summer Wars” in 2009, “Wolf Children” in 2012 and “The Boy and the Beast” in 2015 pushed Hosoda well into the higher echelons of new-generation directors of blockbuster Japanese animated movies.
“There are fewer animation directors compared to live action directors these days,” he says, adding that animations still do very well at the Japanese box office.
“Live action films are very different from animation, especially in terms of the production process. The production crew numbers about 300 people and the director needs to know every single process. You |can’t be a director without knowing all the processes in production.”
Another director of animated films whose work was presented in the festival was Shinkai Makoto, a 43-year-old former graphic designer who has also been hailed at the “Next Hayao Miyazaki”’.
Makoto has been making animated film since 1999, mainly from home and amassed a cult following for such films as “The Place Promised in Our Early Days” (2004), “Children Who Chase Lost Voices” (2011) and “The Garden of Words” (2013). His latest feature “Your Name”, which was released in August, became the sixth highest grossing Japanese movie of all time, and the first for a director who is not Hayao Miyazaki.
Based on his own novel, “Your Name” tells the story of Mitsuha, a girl living in faraway countryside called Itomori, who one day, wakes up in the body of Taki, a boy living in Tokyo. Later Mitsuha and Taki realised that they have switched bodies and start communicating with each other. One day, restored to his own body Taki goes to look for Mitsuha and discovers a tragic tale.
“I want too much of everything. I want to have a lot of beauty in the film. I want the story to have a miracle in it and I want it to end happily,” Makoto says.
“Your Name” shows his unique style of working that relies on a fast montage of beautiful pictures to tell the story. “The film is a compilation of beautiful phrases and scenes that evoke overwhelming emotions but later in the film you can see that beauty becomes the past.
“That was also my feeling during the making of this film.”
One of the animation’s attractions is the music, which was scored by popular Japanese rock band Radwimps, Makoto says he’s particularly grateful to the band’s vocalist and guitarist Yojiro Noda for his work in composing the music and penning the lyrics of the soundtrack.
“He took on not just the melodies but also the monologues. There were so many emotions I wanted my characters to express and I knew Noda would be able to create these,” the animator says.
Noda also enjoyed the experience. “The director told me all the things he wanted two years ago. And I understood exactly what he wanted. It’s amazing that he never gave up but of course that attitude is essential in any type of filmmaking.
“He spent a lot of effort on the music and the background, putting all his energy into every element of the film,” says the guitarist who saw the soundtrack album top Japan’s Oricon charts.
“Your Name”, which is still dominating the Japanese box office, is slated to open in Thailand next Thursday.