BabelAlexandria Reviews (222)

Leo (I) (2023)

Leo--An Animated Lizard for the Ages

[10/10 · 4 January 2024]

For a film that involves Adam Sandler, Leo definitely surprised me-it's Oscar worthy, even great. Leo is a (secretly) talking lizard who has served multiple decades alongside his similarly phono-capable turtle friend as a class pet for fifth graders in Central Florida. Then two fateful events occur: the teacher goes on pregnancy leave, and Leo hears a rumor that his species dies at 75 years old, which happens to be his upcoming birthday. The substitute teacher, an older woman with an unforgiving demeanor and a distrust of modern educational approaches, decides to have each student take Leo home over the weekend to teach them responsibility. Leo, newly reflective as he awaits his impending demise, gives up his original plan to flee to the Everglades and instead decides to talk to each of the students about their problems and fears, drawing on his immense experience observing children. The film does well in its depiction of children: all of them are sympathetically portrayed, issues and all, while remaining stereotype free, for the most part. Leo gives them great advice, but makes them promise not to tell anyone else that he speaks; as a result, the kids all call him "awesome" in class but don't share the secret.

Eventually it gets out that Leo has been counseling all of the students, and this leads to hurt feelings; the film doesn't dwell on why, but the implication is that they are not jealous, but concerned about their privacy: Leo could have told others about their inner foibles and fears (which, of course, as a good counselor, he hasn't done). All of this gets positively resolved in the end, as Leo discovers that his species actually can live to be much older than 75 and decides to continue giving support and advice to elementary school kids. But I'm intrigued by the question of who Leo is supposed to represent? Clearly the movie is not advocating for more emotionally sensitive class pets-if class pets are even a thing? And Leo is not a simple stand-in for teachers, as the substitute remains mean-spirited, and tries to take credit for the lizard's positive effect on the kids. The answer, I think, is obvious: Leo is a message for aging baby-boomer grandparents (hey, my father is 75) to be involved in the lives of their grandchildren, and even to act as confidants, as they both get older.

The Little Mermaid (I) (2023)

Unwrapping the Corporate Repackaging

[7/10 · 25 November 2023]

The live-action versions of animated films which Disney has been systematically pursuing are strange beasts. They all seem to adhere to a tight formula: the characters and plot are left virtually untouched, with the same songs plus several extra ones. In that sense, it's almost like watching the animated version one more time, with much of the fun from pointing out and discussing connections between the two. It's also true that the distinction between "live-action" and "animation" is increasingly slippery after the rise of CGI, which is often very dramatic in these Disney remakes. In the case of the Little Mermaid, however, Disney made some fascinating changes simply through casting, scenery, and costumes. The original version was not a simple adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's tale, and the live-action one completely abandons the connection, instead presupposing, fairly logically, that the real setting is in the Caribbean, 19th-century or so. After all, Scandinavia is now covered by Frozen, which I see is getting another feature film...

Elemental (2023)

Zootopia for the Classical Elements

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

My kiddos watched this movie on Disney+ while I was on a trip and liked it so much they wanted to watch it again with me. They were drawn to its extraordinary animation, especially the imaginative cityscapes blending fire, water, air, and, to a lesser extent earth, whose mannerisms are carbon copies of the sloths in Zootopia. Speaking of Zootopia, there 's a remarkable similarity to the utopian visions of both movies: an urban/civic melting pot of diverse animals/elements in which natural tensions (predator/prey, fire/water) are heroically resolved, at least by some characters. Moreover, in these societies, all animal/elemental sub-groups are apparently immigrants, and there is no single dominant sub-group. While you could argue that these movies are erasing history, you could also argue that they are implicitly offering a dream of collaborative international space colonization of uninhabited land...

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

DNF

[5/10 · 25 November 2023]

This show made my skin crawl. In particular, the way it presents (very) rich people doing (very) bad things and then the brutally violent way in which they face retribution, according to the punishment-fits-the-crime logic of apocalyptic judgment. My problem is the stylized, voyeuristic aesthetic, which seems to encourage the viewer to either take a vicarious pleasure in the House of Usher's transgressions or a spiteful joy in the price they pay for them, namely spectacular deaths. While there may be a certain accuracy to the sins of the .01% on display in this series, moral outrage seems like a much better reaction than watching it; hope for legal justice, as evidenced in the narrative frame of confession to a federal prosecutor, all but disappears after the opening sequence (though again, DNF). The Faustian bargain "Fall" offers the audience is evident in the agent of retribution: a mysterious demonic figure who kills off Roderick Usher's progeny, one by one.

Suburra: Blood on Rome (2017–2020)

Ma che cazzo ha detto?

[8/10 · 25 November 2023]

This show brings an impressive combination of intrigue, tension, and complex characters, skillfully filmed in both the seedy and the beautiful parts of Rome and Ostia. The only problem is that the Italian is virtually incomprehensible, even with subtitles, which are often too fast to follow. Sometimes the issue is a very heavy Romanesco, other times I think it's youthful slang. But everyone, no matter their age or background, uses forms of the word "cazzo" in a breathtaking variety of parts of speech and inflections. I can't think of any profanity with that level of flexibility in other languages. If you are reading this, then this review made it past the IMDB mod bots, but I don't plan on employing my newfound knowledge elsewhere...

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

Voyage of the Dawn Treader Plus the Smoke Monster from LOST

[6/10 · 6 July 2023]

This was the last of the recent cinematic adaptations of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, which was reformulated as a trilogy. My kiddos and I really enjoyed the first two, but this last one was clearly the worst, mostly because it needlessly modified the book's plot along the lines of LOTR, creating an evil opponent to provide a sense of cosmic struggle, in the form of a strange entity that looks suspiciously like the "smoke monster" from LOST, and bringing back the snow queen briefly for good measure. Eustace's voyage of self-discovery, which is the focus of the book, is lost in the resulting confusion.

It seems like the plan was to make The Silver Chair next in the film series, as Jill, the co-star of that book, appears at the end of the Dawn Treader movie; but this never happened for some reason. The Silver Chair, which I noticed was a strong influence on Game of Thrones (at least the HBO series, I can't speak for the book), would definitely work as a contemporary Hollywood movie. The other three would be much harder to adapt, for different reasons. The most interesting case, by far, is The Last Battle, which I read for the first time last year. It features the apocalyptic destruction of old Narnia and the entry into the paradisiacal new Narnia, representing C. S. Lewis's flamboyant, vaguely heretical (though still judgmental) vision of eschatology. It's also one of the few cases I've seen in children's literature where the child hero, or heroes, actually dies, revealed at the end as a brief, almost insignificant afterthought: the Pevensies (except, strangely, Susan) will be staying in Narnia this time because they just died in a train crash. Granted that it's important that young kids be confronted with death, in one form or another, in film and literature, regardless of their experience with it in life, to cultivate empathy, understanding, and self-knowledge. But the death of main characters, especially as these are often identified with by young children, seems like a drastic move. My own kids were surprised by this ending to the Last Battle, didn't really process it, and in general like the last book the least. And I think that is a good thing.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

Mario on Magic Mushrooms; or, Towards an Epistemology of the Sewer

[8/10 · 27 June 2023]

Did I really watch this? Yes, yes I did. At the request of my son, who apparently has talked about it a great deal with his classmates. Actually we'd say it's a success given the constraints of the videogame-to-cinema genre, which I realize has been done before, but maybe not with the same level of self-parody (this was our first exposure to the genre, unless you count Wreck it Ralph, whom my daughter just suggested is a humanoid Donkey Kong). Illumination was the perfect studio for an animated Mario film, with the goombas essentially replacing the Minions, though that is where the Despicable Me analogies end. Princess Peach was pretty hilarious. And the Mario brothers as plumbers from Brooklyn? Could have seen that one coming a mile away. But it's a nice metatheatrical (metaludic?) move which invites the viewers to consider the fictional nature of the video game, albeit by presenting an equally fictional animated city out-of-time, where Mario eats pasta with his family like John Travolta in Night Fever, then retreats to his 80s-themed room, playing Atari-style games on a system labeled Nintendo, all while sporting a smartphone and later exploring a gentrified DUMBO. Mario and Luigi are brought into the video game, Alice-like, through a large hidden pipe system they discover below the city. There they feel less out of place than in cartoon Brooklyn, enjoying the transformative power of shrooms, which not only allow Mario to grow (Princess Peach often jokes that he is "small"), but also to perform successfully in his imaginary world. True story.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)

Another Animated Animal Musical--With a Twist

[7/10 · 22 June 2023]

Somehow I missed this 1960s-era book twice-as a child and a parent-but we all really enjoyed the movie. It's fairly light-hearted, in a good way, and part of the recent explosion of animated animal musicals (e.g. Sing and Trolls), but with a twist: Lyle, as a talking crocodile, seems to be alone among his species, and (almost all) other animals for that matter, in his ability to vocalize human speech; he also seems to prefer fast food over hunting his natural prey, or humans, for that matter. This contributes to his acute loneliness, which draws him to the awkward young boy he bonds with. Also, Lyle can't articulate his own sentences, he can only sing pop songs he's heard-not without comprehension like a parrot, but to express his thoughts and emotions. This obviously presents a challenge to effective communication, but he and his family seem to make it work in most respects. This sensitive Crocodile inspires the boy to overcome his anxiety and...crash a show choir performance! Light-hearted, as I said, but the message and results are all good.

The Black Hole (1979)

Truly Bizarre, but Interesting

[9/10 · 18 June 2023]

My daughter is fascinated by space exploration and really into black holes, so naturally we decided to check out this 1979 Disney live-action film. I've read that, at the time of production, this was the most expensive Disney movie ever, which is mind-boggling given how amateurish the special effects look today, something the kiddos were very interested to see. But it's not just by the standard of computer animation: Star Wars, which came out a year or two earlier, has far superior special effects, and clearly left its mark on the depictions of the "droids" in Black Hole. On the other hand, Max, the largest of these, clearly provided the inspiration for Zurg of Buzz Lightyear fame. Other droids are nothing less than the lobotomized, mechanized human crew of the ingenious, nefarious, Dr. Reinhardt, who has hijacked a government ship over which he was in command, cutting off contact with earth, and preparing to enter a nearby blackhole, convinced that this was possible after years of monitoring it. The crew of another ship finds Reinhardt's vessel by accident, boards, and gradually discovers what he has done and plans to do, so the mad astrophysicist tries to kill or lobotomize them as well. Reinhardt's character dominates the movie, and is what stood out more than the bizarre scene at the end where the two ships enter the Black Hole. While strongly narcissistic, he is less interested in fame on earth, to which he will never return, than to pursue his own trail of knowledge into a kind of deification (which turns out to be a demonization), but not to be worshipped by mere mortals. His ultimate motivations remain unclear. Strange, very strange. Definitely not your typical Disney kid's movie!

Postscript: After sleeping on it last night, I now have some more clarity: the idea of humans being replaced by robots, and "deification" without humans, is an early manifestation of the currently widespread anxiety regarding.the "singularity"/AI takeover. This movie put its finger on the pulse a few decades early, so we've adjusted our rating upwards!

The Fox and the Hound (1981)

A Narnian Reading of The Fox and The Hound

[7/10 · 16 June 2023]

This was the last of the post-WW II Disney Animated Feature canon we watched, and it took us a while to finish it. My daughter lost interest about 10 minutes in; my son and I saw the whole thing about two years later. The animation is beautiful, but overall the film is not one of its better efforts. But we had fun talking about the talking animals! Although the film itself is not anti-hunting, the plot revolves around a tense détente among predator/prey: the fox ("Tod") and the young hound ("Copper") in particular, but also Big Mama Owl, who saves the abandoned Tod, and the woodpecker and the grub, who avoids getting eaten long enough to turn into a butterfly. All of the animals who participate in this carnivalesque suspension of natural predation talk; they are somehow ennobled, like the talking animals (as opposed to the mute animals) of Narnia. The enraged bear, however, who tries to devour not only Tod but Copper, Chief, and their human owner, in violation of the hunting détente, does not speak, it simply growls savagely. Even though our reading has a few holes in it, but we're sticking to it!

Naruto (2002–2007)

Is Naruto Neurodivergent?

[10/10 · 27 May 2023]

We're only on season 4 of this surprisingly appealing landmark (so I'm told) anime, but the kiddos and I are all very impressed. While it's an ensemble cast, Naruto the blond-haired Ninja is the provocative, reactive, and lovable glue that keeps it all together. The subtlety and empathy of Naruto's character was enough for me to overlook what is some potentially problematic content for tweens (I'm talking about you, "sexy jutsu," and the even more problematic "pervy sage"-both of which became jumping-off points for good discussions). His behavior displays some classic ADHD hyperactive symptoms: too full of energy to stay still and concentrate in (ninja) academy or to stay focused on exams; difficulty in social situations, whether interacting with teachers or befriending classmates; self-care; and, in general, easily frustrated. The show unflinchingly presents the challenges for Naruto and his teammates that this behavior creates, but skillfully communicates his deeply good, loving character; his inner resilience and ambition, despite self-doubt; and his ebullience as a kind of invincible tenacity. My son was instantly drawn to him, as was my daughter, who can appreciate his strengths. In fact, Naruto is her favorite character also. This is no doubt helped by the relative lack of strong female leads (cf. Other anime like Nadia: Secret of Blue Water) as well as her announcement that Sasuke, Naruto's friend and rival, who is cast as effortlessly successful and liked/admired by all, is "way too emo" (I'm about 80% sure she means by this that he is brooding and self-absorbed, not that he displays too much anger, affection, etc.). For my part, I am very honored (I think?) that my kiddos now call me "The Bald Kakashi," even if he can sometimes be too blasé.

Junior Bake Off (2011– )

More Inspirational than Educational

[8/10 · 27 March 2023]

Though it could have been both! We hadn't watched a contest show before, and this one seemed like the logical choice (season 6 is the only one currently available on Netflix). It was lots of fun for me, my 10-year old daughter, and my 8-year old son, who really protested at first, but soon became deeply fascinated with it. The technical and creative challenges were really enjoyable in that they showed the nearly infinite variety of baking that is possible, and the kids who participated were bold, creative, and talented in their designs and products. It was always fun to see the finished baked goods, and to hear the judges evaluate their presentation and taste. I was a little surprised to see that the filming of the baking itself does not concentrate on the actual process, and gives no general tips or background information. So after watching the show, one wants to bake like these talented kids, but has not learned anything about how to do that. Another weird thing is that the contestants ranged in age from 10-15, and the first kids to get kicked off were the youngest ones, while the most skilled were the oldest--they probably should have stuck to a 13-15 age range. Finally, my kiddos were a bit puzzled by anglicisms such as the shameless overuse of the word "biscuit" and the mysterious layered monstrosity known as a "trifle", but this low-key intro to standard British English was another positive aspect of the show for them.

Strange World (2022)

Pulp Fiction, Disney Style

[8/10 · 27 March 2023]

This is indeed a strange, clunky movie, but my son loved it, and my daughter and I thought it was decent. So not worthy of the generally negative publicity it's received. It's definitely not in the style of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, but a more wholesome, representative plot that is the trademark of contemporary Disney, yet based on pulp science fiction from mid-century America. The strong points are the animation and the fantasy world, which present the Gaia hypothesis on a planet that hosts humans but is certainly not earth. The characters were a bit underdeveloped and the plot had plenty of gaps. The grandfather-father-son dynamic was the most interesting part, but the idea of the grandfather disrupting the father-son relationship by entering their lives again when his grandson is a teenager, as opposed to, say, a younger child, seemed a bit farfetched. In any case, not one of Disney's strongest efforts. Does this signal a return to the very random Disney animated features of the early 2000s?

Wolfwalkers (2020)

An Irish Hommage to Princess Mononoke

[9/10 · 1 March 2023]

We couldn't wait to get the latest film from Cartoon Saloon, an Irish studio which still uses (basically) hand-drawn animation, after I heard about it through the academy award nomination. WolfWalkers oddly took a very long time to be released on blu ray in the USA, and when it finally was, it was only available through a package with other films from the same studio. But in our book, Cartoon Saloon is so good--right up there with Studio Ghibli, and, yes, Disney/Pixar--that I got the package anyway, even if it meant duplicates in our collection. Despite the academy award consideration, it's not quite as good as its predecessors The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, or the Breadwinner. Still excellent, however, and notable for its very specific and detailed historical fiction, which seems rare in children's animation or literature. Baked into the portrayal of the Cromwellian occupation of Ireland is the fantasy plot of WolfWalkers--Irish lycanthropes who release their wolf-spirit during sleep--and the daughter of an English general who befriends them, gets bitten, and turns into one herself. The allusions to Ghibli's Princess Mononoke are plentiful, but well considered, and creatively blended with Irish folklore; in this case it's the English occupiers who are destroying and de-enchanting the forest-the Irish primeval wood-for the sake of pre-industrialization. In short: worth the hype, even if the hype should have come sooner for Cartoon Saloon.

The Deer King (2021)

Prince Mononoke

[8/10 · 24 February 2023]

We picked this up from GKids as part of our ongoing quest to explore anime beyond Ghibli. This had some real appeal to it, but was far too derivative of Ghibli, and especially of Princess Mononoke, to be really great. The world is completely ahistorical and fictitious, which is fine, but the details don't come together as effortlessly and compellingly as they always seem to for Miyazaki and co.

Like Mononoke, at the beginning of the Deer King a pestilence infects an unsuspecting prince, setting the stage for the broader adventure. And while Mononoke could be read as an allegory for industrialization and de-enchantment, the Deer King levels up on this: the prince's infection is presented as a curse of the kami spirits in the Ghibli film, but the Deer King dramatizes the discovery that it is actually caused by biological agents. Yet for all the playful engagement with the Ghibli masterpiece, this fun film never really escapes the magnetic pull of its inspiration. The high rating is from my kiddos-I would go for a six or seven.

Big City Greens (2018– )

Disney Returns to the Midwest

[9/10 · 24 February 2023]

Disney + recommended this to my kiddos, despite the lack of the fantasy element found on otherwise similar shows like Amphibia. And the recommendation algorithm got it right--I wasn't expecting them to love it as much as they do. Big City Greens tells the story of the Green family, who move from their farm in the country to the unspecified "big city," which definitely has a Midwestern feel to it, more of a Kansas City (Walt's childhood home) or Cincinnati than a New York or SF. All of the characters--kids, parents, grandparents--are super annoying, but the storylines are usually hilarious satire that stops just short of being inappropriate for the intended age group (well, minus adults). Beyond the humor, I still can't figure out what the appeal is to my children. True, they're Iowa City natives who are also honorary New Yorkers, but probably know less about farming than I did growing up in Brooklyn. Maybe it's an incipient rural solidarity that could potentially be a good thing? But I suspect this show would appeal to most tweens, irrespective of their Midwestern credentials...

Poupelle of Chimney Town (2020)

Brilliantly Animated Coal-Punk Dystopia for Kiddos (Also, a Halloween Movie)

[8/10 · 2 January 2023]

We watched Poupelle over the summer without realizing that it is a kind-of-perfect Halloween movie. After all, it's hard to catch that from the title, which is appropriate in its own way for a film that features a young boy's relationship with an animated (in multiple senses) trash spirit--well, almost appropriate, assuming p and b are allophones in Japanese?!? Geeky asides aside, the trash-man materializes from a falling star on Halloween night. This sentient, if shy and confused, gentle creature is at first accepted as just one of the costumed revelers in a truly carnivalesque explosion of music and color amidst the otherwise drab cityscape. Without a doubt the most striking quality of this film is the contrast between the vibrant colors of the characters and their surroundings and the oppressive smog overhanging the city that completely shuts out day and night alike in a perpetual grey. The plot too is interesting-the trash-man develops as a father figure for the boy, whose dad, a somewhat incompetent member of a group resisting the city's rulers, was recently killed by them. This group asserts that there is in fact a sky beyond the fog. Poupelle thus shares the common environmental ethos of Japanese animae, but mixes it with themes about the persecution of religious minorities in an interesting way. Definitely worth a watch, especially as an example of the aesthetic possibilities of an animation style which eschews the hyper-realism of most current American efforts.

Turning Red (2022)

Red Pandas are not Really Pandas

[9/10 · 2 January 2023]

We watched this movie when it arrived in Spring 2022 on Disney+, and recently my daughter re-watched on the plane. Despite the title, the emphasis on girls puberty is fairly restrained, at least explicitly; other themes such as the experience of Chinese-Canadian families, and a particularly Canadian style of multiculturalism, are much more prominent. But the Red Panda-identity steals the show, especially for my son, who enjoyed pointing out that the rendering was very inaccurate: basically, it looks like Po the Kung Fu Panda but with red fur instead of black fur. And sized like Po as well. Come on, Pixar, you can do better! Probably the favorite aspect of the plot for both kiddos was the drama surrounding the boy band, "Five Town" (there are only four of them), which will go down as one of the best in the annals of boy band satire.

Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005)

Is Kirikou Past the Mirror Stage?

[7/10 · 2 January 2023]

Got this because the kiddos enjoyed the first installment and its fairly difficult to find African-themed animation. The baby-man returns for more adventures in this series of short episodes, usually featuring animals, which made my son especially happy. These mostly unfold around his home village in the Sahel, but he also visits other African landmarks such as Victoria Falls and Mount Kilimanjaro. Once again he is thwarting the evil plots of the Sorceress and her fetiches, which are mostly portrayed as mute automatons, except for the one that is placed atop her home, the only one which talks, and can see far into the distance with a scope: my daughter notes that this is "an AI" with "computer vision" (spoken like a true Zoomer gen!). In (typical?) French fashion, after the Sorceress is defeated in the final episode, the young Kirikou complains that he misses her, because he is attracted to her!! I'm pretty sure there's a compelling Lacanian reading to this, but I'll leave it to someone else-is Kirikou past the mirror stage?

The Painting (2011)

Animation about Paintings

[9/10 · 1 January 2023]

This is a very earnest but fun film which uses paintings to make a compelling, if also fairly vague, social statement. I got it because I was intrigued by the connections it would make between paintings and animation, and thought my kids would find this interesting. I later realized that the film's main premise, that paintings are "alive" like animation, and can even escape their canvas, was actually not new, but lifted directly from The King and the Mockingbird-a dependence which is not surprising given that The Painting was produced in France and Belgium. While that film used paintings to comment on the medium of animation, The Painting delves deeper into the painting itself, which it uses as an allegory for society. One premise is that paintings are a snapshot of an active world, which is moving behind the scenes; the other is that paintings are strictly hierarchical: some characters are fully colored ("all dones"); others are still in need of some coloring ("halfies"); and, at the bottom, are the mere sketches. The idea is that the painting is unfinished, but one could equally imagine that certain layers/characters have been abandoned and overpainted. The movie is, at its heart, a morality tale speaking out against the abuse of power by some of the "all dones," especially against the sketches, which could be applied to many situations; the idea that the halfies and sketches efforts to find the painter to complete themselves is misguided sends a much more ambiguous and mixed message. In any case, my kiddos enjoyed it and talked about it a lot afterwards.

The King and the Mockingbird (1980)

Paintings about Animation

[10/10 · 1 January 2023]

I learned about this film when I read that Miyazaka and Takahata both cite it as a major influence, alongside the Snow Queen. It's held to be a landmark in French animation, but is a bit of a moving target: a first version was begun right after World War II and released in 1952, without the approval of its director Paul Grimault, and this is the version that impressed the founders of Ghibli so much. There's plenty of fascist critique in the film that makes it still highly relevant for today. But the version currently available on DVD (though not in the US-you need a region-free player to watch) was released by Grimault in 1980, with some edits and new material. Even the later version has a 1950s feel to it, like Disney's Alice in Wonderland, and the fantasy element really appealed to my children, despite the adult themes. Interestingly, the film's influence on Ghibli was not at all obvious to me, in contrast to the Snow Queen. What struck me far more was the story-within-a-story of the shepherdess and the chimney sweep, who are introduced as paintings in the King's high chamber at the top of his fortress/city. They eventually come alive and escape their canvas, becoming a part of the animation, and indeed the focus of the plot, as the mockingbird helps them escape; the king himself is secretly deposed by his own self-portrait, who takes over the hunt for the young lovers. So in a way the film can be seen as an expression of animation's potential as a moving extension of the painted image, which hijacks the original conflict of the King and the Mockingbird and redirects towards a different story which is not even hinted at in the title-like the Snow Queen, oddly, an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson.

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990–2003)

The Ancient Alien Game is Strong

[9/10 · 3 November 2022]

This 39-episode Japanese animated series from the late 80s/early 90s was recently remastered by GKids, and we watched it in September and October, finishing around Halloween. I wanted to try some non-Miyazaki/non-Ghibli anime, and the director, Hideaki Anno, is also the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is more famous, but, I've heard, not really appropriate for younger kids. Nadia has a fascinating mix of Classical and Hebrew Bible themes, in a steam-punk, late 19th-century mold that also draws on Jules Verne and H. P. Lovecraft. But most interesting to me was the "ancient aliens" focus, so widely tossed about these days in (pseudo-) historical documentaries. It doesn't partake in the usual racist tropes (e.g. The Egyptians couldn't have built the pyramids themselves, it must have been aliens), but goes in other directions: the Atlanteans, it turns out, are aliens with advanced technology, having been stranded on earth several million (!) years ago. There are plenty of holes in this narrative, but the basics of it are eye-raising: humanity was genetically engineered by the Atlanteans to serve them (recalling the ancient Mesopotamian Enuma Elish); Adam and the first humans were giants destroyed by these aliens in the flood, along with dinosaurs, etc., whose skeletons are collected as pairs in the Atlantean ruins, the remnants of the ark; the Towel of Babel, another Atlantean ruin, is actually the focal point of a massive, satellite powered WMD. In other words, the Atlanteans are the "God/s" of the Hebrew Bible, but, if not evil, they are very flawed ones, who basically destroy each other through wars. Ironically, Gargoyle, who wants to start a neo-Atlantean empire and re-subjugate humans, argues that humans cannot be left to their own devices, or they will destroy themselves and the world. In another layer of irony, he is revealed to be a human himself at the end of the show. All in all, a very interesting, if confused, ancient aliens plot.

My son strongly identified with Jean, the young, brave inventor, which I thought was a good thing; but the show's portrayal of Nadia was problematic and really showed its age. I could tell my daughter was strongly intrigued by her in the first episode, which emphasizes her bravery and acrobatics, but then Nadia alternately feels jealous and fawning over Jean's intelligence, and is frequently "saved" by him. So my daughter quickly started talking about how annoying Nadia was--also a good thing! Both kiddos were really into the series, but above all for the plot.

And finally, in my view there is no question that Disney's Atlantis took the main characters, and many aspects of the plot, from Nadia. The director Kirk Wise denied knowing about this series, so we were speculating about the various parts of the creative process in which this dependence could have occurred. Interestingly, the Atlanteans in Disney's Atlantis are not aliens, they are just an ancient civilization with advanced technology, much like the Sumerians in the famous 80s Ghibli film Castle in the Sky. There's an interesting bifurcation in Japanese anime between post-apocalyptic worlds, in which WMDs have decimated humanity and their inventions; and Golden ages of ancient civilizations which lived peacefully with advanced technology-until they fall apart.

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2013)

From Illumination to Animation; Or, The Ghibli Princess Movie

[10/10 · 31 October 2022]

My daughter found the Ghibli section of our bluray tower and wants to revisit some of her old favorites, after at least four years. This great film by Isao Takahata was her first choice, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much my son also enjoyed it. It's the only "Princess movie" in the Ghibli canon (Princess Mononoke doesn't actually fit the genre in my view), but with few if any allusions to Disney. Instead it's closely modeled after a famous medieval Japanese tale, the Bamboo Cutter, which is also heavily Buddhist. Despite its 2013 release date, Kaguya is traditionally animated, though none of its production cels or backgrounds seem to have been on the market or at auction. I was very intrigued by how the animation recalls the illumination of medieval Japanese manuscripts, starting with the opening credits, which are against the background of multi-colored paper. To me, illuminated manuscripts are much closer to traditional animation art than, say, oil painting (more on The Painting soon). I could almost imagine, especially while watching the scenes of princess Kaguya running, someone flipping rapidly through an old manuscript book of the Bamboo Cutter. But then I remembered that they were scrolls, not codices, so much for that interpretation...

Son of the White Mare (1981)

Abstract Animation, Complex Myth

[8/10 · 22 October 2022]

I'd been meaning to check this one out for a while, so was excited to see that it's now been remastered and released in the US on blu ray. I convinced my kids to watch it by suggesting that it would be a good Halloween choice-there is a descent into the underworld, after all-but it's not so much creepy as foreboding. The movie claims to have a basis in ancient Hungarian/Avar myth (and hey, the title does include a horse in it), presumably oral, but I haven't been able to find its actual source anywhere. The myth itself is strange and hard to follow, but majestic, driven less by the sparse Hungarian narration than the amazing visuals, which have made the movie famous. A constantly transforming mix of rectilinear shapes and curves, with lively light play and lightening, frame all the characters and their environment, and fits the cosmological myth perfectly. I'm also curious how the animation was produced-in many of the scenes it seems like no animation cel background was used, in others almost like there was a "foreground". Anyway, respect to my kids: the film was not what they were expecting, but they got into it, especially towards the end, and stuck with it over three nights or so, all while dealing with subtitling.

Zootopia (2016)

Officer Hopps: A Noble Rabbit

[9/10 · 20 October 2022]

It's been a few years since we've watched this, but my two kiddos both really like it-they were taken with the concept of an urban animal utopia that suddenly falls under threat. I'm reviewing it now for its portrayal of rabbits, above all, Officer Judy Hopps, who has the starring role (and, it should be added, is the only female leading rabbit known to me!). She grows up with other rabbits in a rural community, which has its own problems, but remains scared of the big city: so, slightly timid, which is fair enough for a prey animal, and country-loving, which makes sense for a grazer. Officer Hopps, however, is brave and big-hearted, and has the open-mindedness to work with her most noted predator, a fox, who has his own issues, to stop a conspiracy of prey animals to eliminate predators.

Literary or cinematic utopias often conceal major unanswered questions, and Zootopia's is this: what are the predators eating, exactly, to enable all the animals to get along? But never mind that, my review is about rabbits. Officer Hopps is probably the most positive and sympathetic portrayal of a bunny in animation, way ahead of other characters, like the psychotic snowball (Secret Life of Pets), an out-of-touch Easter Bunny and his lazy son (Hop), or the more naturalistic rabbits, including some extremely brutal ones, in Watership Down, which is probably the best rabbit movie; while the clever and mischievous Bugs Bunny seems unrelated to all of them. This is an assessment in progress, as we still have to read/watch Peter Rabbit, but it does seem clear that there is no enduring rabbit stereotype(s), possibly because they are still relatively unfamiliar pets.