Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki is a well-known anime director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. He does amazing work and I was first introduced to him when I saw Spirited Away - which was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award. I have seen almost all of his films and each one amazes me with it's intricate details, characters and unique worlds.



Nausicaä and the baby Ohm

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the second film Miyazaki directed and was based on his manga of the same name. The film is set on post-apocalyptic Earth 1000 years after a devastating war destroyed civilization and the Earth's ecosystems. The results is a landscape covered by toxic and deadly forests with humans surviving in small pockets of habitable land. Giant insects (Ohm) and other creatures are the only ones that can live in the toxic forests. Civil war breaks out between neighbouring countries and it's up to Nausicaä, a princess from a small valley community, to stop the war from spiralling out of control and causing more destruction to a very fragile Earth.

 

The film has a strong environmental message, but what initially caught my attention was the quality of the animation. The entire world of giant insects and toxic forests was enthrallingly beautiful. What completely flabbergasted me was when I found out the year the film was made - 1984!

 

Pixar and Dreamworks do great work, but there's no need to fix something which isn't broken. Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki have stuck to a very captivating formula of animation style and storytelling which I hope will never disappear.