Today we watched Tales from Earthsea, Gor么 Miyazaki's first film and loose adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's third novel in the series of the same name.
This movie felt like it was all about the duality of the world. All the main characters contained opposing, yet complementary natures within them: Arren, the hero of the story, is a young prince fleeing his homeland after murdering the King his father; Sparrowhawk is the Archmage of the land, but also a simple farmer; Tenar is a simple farmer herself, but also a "witch" who can brew cures; and Therru isn't just a regular girl. And everybody has a name and a true name.
The film even begins with a direct quote from the first Earthsea book:
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky."
Sparrowhawk says Ea is out of balance. This is causing crops to fail, dragons to appear closer to human settlements and kill each other, and darkness to cover the land. Sparrowhawk is trying to discover what is causing the imbalance, and finds Lord Cob, the main antagonist, attempting to flee the duality of life and death by gaining eternal life. But in becoming immortal and banishing death, he would also banish life. We cannot really live if we cannot die the film tells us (also Sparrowhawk and Therru, in case the rest of the film was too subtle 馃槢 ).
Behind the scenes, Hayao Miyazaki was supposed to direct the film, but he was busy with Howl's Moving Castle (another adaptation of another fantasy novel). Instead, Studio Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki decided Hayao's son Gor么 should direct, against Hayao's wishes. Gor么 would use not just material from Le Guin's book, but also from his father's manga Shuna no Tabi. Production was reportedly tense with father and son not speaking throughout even though Le Guin was told Hayao would oversee Gor么's work (she had only agreed to let Ghibli adapt if Hayao were directing, and was also disappointed to learn Gor么 was instead).
When the film came out however, Hayao was happy with it, while Le Guin was not.
Dualities are all around and cannot be escaped from.
I'm not sure I enjoyed this film as much as other Ghibli films I've seen, but I didn't hate it either. I feel like the younger Miyazaki just isn't as good as his father or Takahata.
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