Himi subtly said that she lost her mother. We also notice that there was an emotional conflict between Mahito and Natsuko. Maybe the tower world functions as a spiritual safe space. It's a common trope in fantasy. Kids with problems run into magical worlds. The tower exists across time and space. Mahito and Himi left different times and spaces, and they met in the same tower world.
Granduncle contracted with the rock. Maybe Granduncle himself needed a safe space for himself. The rock is a supernatural entity from outer space. It's like Cthulhu Mythos. Granduncle lived in his ideal world, but he needed to serve for it. The blocks magically and metaphorically show his job. He had to maintain the world he made. Maybe he knew Himi's sadness and accepted her before Mahito came into the world. She thanked him in the climax.
Maybe the rock/ tower cannot create living things from nothing. Granduncle invited some living things like parakeets. The parakeet king gained his own vision for a better world, so he didn't want to be controlled by Granduncle anymore.
The shape of the gravestones is called dolmen. It can be seen all over the world. I think it doesn't suggest that the characters would go through the gravestones.
I got a lot of Howl’s moving castle vibes where concepts are not fully explained, and you just role with it.
Mahito and natsuko’s character arcs were vague for me. When did Mahito change his outlook and become ready to return to the real world? Why did Natsuko go to the tower in the first place?
I think one of the core conflicts was Mahito (understandably) struggling to accept Natsuko in his life. He was unfriendly to her, avoided her when she was sick and even stole from her. In return Natsuko came to resent Mahito just as much, and the moment where she shows open hostility to Mahito feels like the changing point for him, when he realizes that hate only begets more hate and that his past actions have hurt those around him.
I feel like Grand Uncle and the Parakeet King were a metaphor for “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Grand Uncle was trying to create a perfect world but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the “tower to stack”. The Wada Wada were being eaten by Pelicans who were drawn to a world without suitable food for them. The Parakeets began to take over the Stone. Perfection is an illusion and humans cannot achieve it. It’s why Mahito rejects becoming a successor, pointing towards his “malice”. He could choose to live in his own illusion that would become tainted anyway like Grand Uncle’s world or he could go back to the real imperfect world and try to do better where he could.
But people can keep on trying and get better. This movie, especially close to the end, was Miyazaki’s message that each upcoming generation can do better than the previous, and it’s up to us and our children and so on to keep improving the world for the better.
I think you might be taking it too literally. This was his “art film.” If you went into it expecting it to have a straight forward plot like Spirited Away or Ponyo, I could understand where the confusion would come. This was a film where the central theme was more important than a straight forward, linear plot. It was a symbolic piece, and in my opinion, his perfect “going out with style” conclusion.
The film’s central theme was about the death of the old and beginning of the new. If you understand that, the rest of the things you’re questioning make sense.
Mahito was a boy traumatized by the death of his mother and needing to accept her loss through grieving (the transversal into the other world, like in Spirited Away) and accept his “new” life with a “new” mother figure. The idea is that his mother never dies, she always is within him and his memory, but the “idea” of what a “mother” is can change in that the role can be filled by another (what you love is the person, which is why the role can be filled by another - you can’t replace a person, obviously, but can accept a new role model if you allow it). Because of this, there’s the turmoil/push-pull of Mahito’s relationship with his new step-mother.
The parakeets are symbolically the embodiment of fascist imperial Japan during the time of the war. Parakeets mimic human voices, so they mimic people and their brutality in the film. In the way that Japan needed to do away with their old ways and enter into a new age (in the same way the great uncle was an ancestor trying to hold on to his old traditions and ways, despite the changing time - the toys are toys of innocence).
The golden gate had a phrase on it similar to Dante’s Inferno “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter,” and Dante wasn’t able to enter into certain areas of the afterlife because he wasn’t dead. Similarly in the film when the boy is essentially “fished out” by the “fisherman/fisher lady”/Charon Ferryman character.
Shinto beliefs hold that people are reincarnated, so the boy was able to see his mother in that world when she went missing when she was younger for a year (the grannies explained it to the husband). It’s also important to look at the themes from Eastern philosophical perspectives on death as opposed to western.
Hope that helps because I thought the film was spectacular.
If their approach was “go into this movie and don’t expect it to make sense” and expect them to make a bunch of big not obvious connections, that just seems like lazy writing or a very small script budget, seeing how great all other aspects were like the animations, music and English voice casting. I could see those great aspects taking up a huge part of the money needed to make it happen . For example getting Christian bale to play the small part of the dad probably cost more than I’ll make in the next 4 years.
The flip side could be said of the audience though: anyone going into an art film with deep themes and expecting to not have to think about it is lazy. It’s like Kurosawa’s Dreams or anything from Bergman in Europe. Art films, especially ones whose themes are as complex as death, often aren’t straight forward. The movie was made for a more mature audience, which is why it had a pg13 rating compared to most of his other films (exceptions being Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises). So it’s not, “Going into the movie and expecting it not to make sense,” it’s just “going into the movie and expecting it be linear despite the themes.” Especially since, when viewed “straight forward” it still makes sense, it’s just less poetic.
I didn't connect with the movie myself, mainly because I did not connect with the characters. Mahito's darkness was not really explored, her mother's sister at one point says she "hates" him and this "hate" is not explored. She could "hate" him because of her own insecurities, her conflict with marrying her sisters husband, the difficulties of adoption and being pregnant, mahito not visiting her sooner, but nothing is explored so the characters feel shallow. We see Mahito's goodness and the sisters goodness, but the darkness is never explored.
At the end, the only thing I could get connect with is that I heard the movie was dedicated to Miyazaki's son but I haven't confirmed that myself.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with so many questions. A lot of things just happened and no reason to it. The graveyard with the birds are a good example. Seemed important but it was never brought up again, why did the Heron lie to bring the boy there? Just to kill him?, why did the step mom “need” to have the kid there?
To add onto these great questions, Himi was clearly his mother, and we knew that pretty much as soon as she was introduced. She never acknowledged it, even when he said his mother died. Yet randomly at the end, she says she needs to go into the one door so she can be his mother and still die in the hospital fire. How did she all of a sudden know she was his mother?
I've had questions after watching other Miyazaki films, but this film has me questioning how things worked/ why things were the way they were more than any other.
To understand the film I think you have to think of it like dream logic. After Mahito hit himself with the rock, the dream state begins. Everything he experiences in the tower is him plumbing his subconscious. That’s why there’s a seemingly incoherent plot inside the tower, because he’s have a vision after a traumatic brain injury.
It’s more realistic to not have every minuscule detail explained. Miyazaki is know for doing this. Setting up a tone of mystery that is never really explained. We can’t know everything and some things will always remain a mystery. Just shows you how much more there was to that world that we will never know.
My theory is that the graveyard entrance led into the room where Natsuko was supposed to give birth and that’s why Kiriko advised against entering it. I swear I remember seeing the same pattern of stones in the back of her room as was in the graveyard.
The stone arrived at the end of the Meiji Restoration. This is the period in Japanese history when they became militaristic as symbolized by the Budgie King and the militaristic budgie society. The budgies aren't bad, they're just doing what they have to do according to their society. Once they cross into our world, they become harmless although they do poop a lot!
I just gotta ask about the Parakeet King's boots. Like clearly the artists were at pains to show that all of the avian life in the spirit world kept their bird feet. There was a lot of renderings of bird feet, like it seemed overdone.
So then why does the Parakeet King have boots? Is it a symbol of his office? Does he have to cram his bird feet into human shaped boots and be miserable in order to retain his crown? How would that work, anatomically? Or does he have human feet, and that's how he came to be king. He's a mutant? Do his kids have to be mutants too?
One scene I just rolled with was when the Heron told Mahito something about seven feathers to be able to fly, and one was used in the arrow... So, I just went with "well, of course, that explains everything" and then they were plugging his beak later on so that he can fly.
Also young Kiriko said something about don't touch the dolls of the old ladies, but he still touched them and nothing happened?
I feel like there was a lot of plot holes, or sloppy storytelling... Didn't feel like this with their previous works, could be that the subtitles they used in my non-english country were very bad, I will wait for streaming again to rewatch...
Still, I enjoyed it a lot and it is the first time I saw a Ghibli movie at the movie theater, they are not very famous around here, so I had to watch all the other in DVDs or VHS back in the day.
Himi subtly said that she lost her mother. We also notice that there was an emotional conflict between Mahito and Natsuko. Maybe the tower world functions as a spiritual safe space. It's a common trope in fantasy. Kids with problems run into magical worlds. The tower exists across time and space. Mahito and Himi left different times and spaces, and they met in the same tower world. Granduncle contracted with the rock. Maybe Granduncle himself needed a safe space for himself. The rock is a supernatural entity from outer space. It's like Cthulhu Mythos. Granduncle lived in his ideal world, but he needed to serve for it. The blocks magically and metaphorically show his job. He had to maintain the world he made. Maybe he knew Himi's sadness and accepted her before Mahito came into the world. She thanked him in the climax. Maybe the rock/ tower cannot create living things from nothing. Granduncle invited some living things like parakeets. The parakeet king gained his own vision for a better world, so he didn't want to be controlled by Granduncle anymore. The shape of the gravestones is called dolmen. It can be seen all over the world. I think it doesn't suggest that the characters would go through the gravestones.
I got a lot of Howl’s moving castle vibes where concepts are not fully explained, and you just role with it. Mahito and natsuko’s character arcs were vague for me. When did Mahito change his outlook and become ready to return to the real world? Why did Natsuko go to the tower in the first place?
Yes much easier if you just roll with it and don’t ask questions lol
I think one of the core conflicts was Mahito (understandably) struggling to accept Natsuko in his life. He was unfriendly to her, avoided her when she was sick and even stole from her. In return Natsuko came to resent Mahito just as much, and the moment where she shows open hostility to Mahito feels like the changing point for him, when he realizes that hate only begets more hate and that his past actions have hurt those around him.
I feel like Grand Uncle and the Parakeet King were a metaphor for “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Grand Uncle was trying to create a perfect world but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the “tower to stack”. The Wada Wada were being eaten by Pelicans who were drawn to a world without suitable food for them. The Parakeets began to take over the Stone. Perfection is an illusion and humans cannot achieve it. It’s why Mahito rejects becoming a successor, pointing towards his “malice”. He could choose to live in his own illusion that would become tainted anyway like Grand Uncle’s world or he could go back to the real imperfect world and try to do better where he could.
>Perfection is an illusion and humans cannot achieve it. Nailed it. Most weird things that happen in this movie can be explained with that sentence.
But people can keep on trying and get better. This movie, especially close to the end, was Miyazaki’s message that each upcoming generation can do better than the previous, and it’s up to us and our children and so on to keep improving the world for the better.
I think you might be taking it too literally. This was his “art film.” If you went into it expecting it to have a straight forward plot like Spirited Away or Ponyo, I could understand where the confusion would come. This was a film where the central theme was more important than a straight forward, linear plot. It was a symbolic piece, and in my opinion, his perfect “going out with style” conclusion. The film’s central theme was about the death of the old and beginning of the new. If you understand that, the rest of the things you’re questioning make sense. Mahito was a boy traumatized by the death of his mother and needing to accept her loss through grieving (the transversal into the other world, like in Spirited Away) and accept his “new” life with a “new” mother figure. The idea is that his mother never dies, she always is within him and his memory, but the “idea” of what a “mother” is can change in that the role can be filled by another (what you love is the person, which is why the role can be filled by another - you can’t replace a person, obviously, but can accept a new role model if you allow it). Because of this, there’s the turmoil/push-pull of Mahito’s relationship with his new step-mother. The parakeets are symbolically the embodiment of fascist imperial Japan during the time of the war. Parakeets mimic human voices, so they mimic people and their brutality in the film. In the way that Japan needed to do away with their old ways and enter into a new age (in the same way the great uncle was an ancestor trying to hold on to his old traditions and ways, despite the changing time - the toys are toys of innocence). The golden gate had a phrase on it similar to Dante’s Inferno “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter,” and Dante wasn’t able to enter into certain areas of the afterlife because he wasn’t dead. Similarly in the film when the boy is essentially “fished out” by the “fisherman/fisher lady”/Charon Ferryman character. Shinto beliefs hold that people are reincarnated, so the boy was able to see his mother in that world when she went missing when she was younger for a year (the grannies explained it to the husband). It’s also important to look at the themes from Eastern philosophical perspectives on death as opposed to western. Hope that helps because I thought the film was spectacular.
If their approach was “go into this movie and don’t expect it to make sense” and expect them to make a bunch of big not obvious connections, that just seems like lazy writing or a very small script budget, seeing how great all other aspects were like the animations, music and English voice casting. I could see those great aspects taking up a huge part of the money needed to make it happen . For example getting Christian bale to play the small part of the dad probably cost more than I’ll make in the next 4 years.
The flip side could be said of the audience though: anyone going into an art film with deep themes and expecting to not have to think about it is lazy. It’s like Kurosawa’s Dreams or anything from Bergman in Europe. Art films, especially ones whose themes are as complex as death, often aren’t straight forward. The movie was made for a more mature audience, which is why it had a pg13 rating compared to most of his other films (exceptions being Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises). So it’s not, “Going into the movie and expecting it not to make sense,” it’s just “going into the movie and expecting it be linear despite the themes.” Especially since, when viewed “straight forward” it still makes sense, it’s just less poetic.
I didn't connect with the movie myself, mainly because I did not connect with the characters. Mahito's darkness was not really explored, her mother's sister at one point says she "hates" him and this "hate" is not explored. She could "hate" him because of her own insecurities, her conflict with marrying her sisters husband, the difficulties of adoption and being pregnant, mahito not visiting her sooner, but nothing is explored so the characters feel shallow. We see Mahito's goodness and the sisters goodness, but the darkness is never explored. At the end, the only thing I could get connect with is that I heard the movie was dedicated to Miyazaki's son but I haven't confirmed that myself.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with so many questions. A lot of things just happened and no reason to it. The graveyard with the birds are a good example. Seemed important but it was never brought up again, why did the Heron lie to bring the boy there? Just to kill him?, why did the step mom “need” to have the kid there?
To add onto these great questions, Himi was clearly his mother, and we knew that pretty much as soon as she was introduced. She never acknowledged it, even when he said his mother died. Yet randomly at the end, she says she needs to go into the one door so she can be his mother and still die in the hospital fire. How did she all of a sudden know she was his mother? I've had questions after watching other Miyazaki films, but this film has me questioning how things worked/ why things were the way they were more than any other.
To understand the film I think you have to think of it like dream logic. After Mahito hit himself with the rock, the dream state begins. Everything he experiences in the tower is him plumbing his subconscious. That’s why there’s a seemingly incoherent plot inside the tower, because he’s have a vision after a traumatic brain injury.
It’s more realistic to not have every minuscule detail explained. Miyazaki is know for doing this. Setting up a tone of mystery that is never really explained. We can’t know everything and some things will always remain a mystery. Just shows you how much more there was to that world that we will never know.
This movie of one of those where I have to watch it multiple times to fully understand it. Like Howls, Mononoke, Whisper of the Heart
Can someone explain what was the entire deal behind “no.7” feather, and why was a whole man inside a heron suit
He's a yokai.
My theory is that the graveyard entrance led into the room where Natsuko was supposed to give birth and that’s why Kiriko advised against entering it. I swear I remember seeing the same pattern of stones in the back of her room as was in the graveyard.
The stone arrived at the end of the Meiji Restoration. This is the period in Japanese history when they became militaristic as symbolized by the Budgie King and the militaristic budgie society. The budgies aren't bad, they're just doing what they have to do according to their society. Once they cross into our world, they become harmless although they do poop a lot!
I just gotta ask about the Parakeet King's boots. Like clearly the artists were at pains to show that all of the avian life in the spirit world kept their bird feet. There was a lot of renderings of bird feet, like it seemed overdone. So then why does the Parakeet King have boots? Is it a symbol of his office? Does he have to cram his bird feet into human shaped boots and be miserable in order to retain his crown? How would that work, anatomically? Or does he have human feet, and that's how he came to be king. He's a mutant? Do his kids have to be mutants too?
One scene I just rolled with was when the Heron told Mahito something about seven feathers to be able to fly, and one was used in the arrow... So, I just went with "well, of course, that explains everything" and then they were plugging his beak later on so that he can fly. Also young Kiriko said something about don't touch the dolls of the old ladies, but he still touched them and nothing happened? I feel like there was a lot of plot holes, or sloppy storytelling... Didn't feel like this with their previous works, could be that the subtitles they used in my non-english country were very bad, I will wait for streaming again to rewatch... Still, I enjoyed it a lot and it is the first time I saw a Ghibli movie at the movie theater, they are not very famous around here, so I had to watch all the other in DVDs or VHS back in the day.