The IMDb Top 250 list contains seven Studio Ghibli features. Seven. It's a staggering amount considering the studio's considerably small output - Ghibli is thirty years younger than Walt Disney Studios (sixty years younger than the overall Disney group) and has produced eighteen features thus far - and just goes to show the quality of the Ghibli brand, and the extent to which it has engaged with audiences worldwide. The fact that a global audience has announced a full third of the studio's output (all Japanese-language animations) worthy of a position in the list of the greatest 250 films ever made, goes to show the impact Miyazaki and co. have had.
Miyazaki in particular stands firmly as the poster boy for Ghibli, amassing praise from all corners of the industry and from far-flung audiences across the globe. That all but one of the featured titles in the list are Miyazaki-directed pictures, speaks to the mastery of the man's storytelling prowess and artistic genius. His work often blends the ancient worlds of nature and spiritualism with the modern day worlds of machinery, industry and teenagers, often offering a socio-historical commentary, while maintaining a gentle empathy between the audience and the often bizarre characters. Among his most famous character creations are No Face - a sinister, people-eating silhouette, Calcifer - a wise-cracking flame, and Totoro, a humongous grinning cat-beast who has since become the Studio's logo and an internationally recognised pop-culture icon. In short, Studio Ghibli's reach is awe-inspiring and Miyazaki sits comfortably as the world's greatest living animator.
It is with a mixture of excitement and sadness that we await The Wind Rises. A masterpiece it is sure to be, but the idea of Miyazaki bowing out of filmmaking is difficult to bear. Let us, for a moment, turn away from that sad future, and look back on some of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's greatest triumphs.
For many audiences, Spirited Away acts as an introduction to the world of Ghibli. It was certainly the film that garnered the studio its first major global platform when it scooped an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and began a hugely successful franchise in well-cast English dub versions of the Ghibli canon. And it certainly earned the praise it received. An eccentric story following a naive girl's entrapment in an abandoned theme park ruled by spirits, the film tackles the tricky themes of loss of childhood, crises of identity and, of course, grown-ups turning into pigs. It also introduces us to the characters of spooky ghost No Face, the spider-like boilerman Kamaji and the devious witch Yubaba. Unique, odd, dreamlike, charming, flawless.
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Easily the most sombre of the Ghibli films, Grave of the Firelies is often cited as one of the most powerful movies about World War II ever to be produced. It is also one of the few war films that depicts events from the perspective of the Japanese. The achingly sad narrative follows headstrong 14-year old Seita and his playful younger sister Setsuko, as they navigate wartorn Japan in the final months of World War II. As the world as they know it crumbles around them, the pair face constant challenges and ultimately must abandon everything, including any trace of hope, as their story develops into a shattering tragedy. Deeply moving and undeniably affecting, Grave of the Fireflies is a profound piece of filmmaking that utilises every asset of its medium to convey the effects of war in ways live-action cinema will likely never achieve.
A true fantasy epic, Princess Mononoke represents a further departure from the standard Ghibli conventions. Whilst it contains more than its fair share of whimsical characters and odd little creatures, Princess Mononoke is also a frequently violent, fiercely serious meditation on man's destruction of his environment. Presented in the form of a classic fable, Mononoke contains some breathtakingly rich environments, and brilliant storytellling which pulls the audience deep into an intensely well-realised world. The notion that the entire film was, for the most part, hand drawn is simply mind-boggling. A true classic of the fantasy genre and without doubt one of the greatest animated films ever made.
Long live Ghibli!
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