Top Ten Animated Films with Guest Writer Tucker Meijer: #2
If you want to read the introduction from Tucker and myself, please go to our choices for the #10 best animated film. Here are our selections for #2.
Tucker’s #2: Akira
Before I fully get into my review, I want to quickly recommend an animated Christmas movie that I saw last night: Klaus. I’m wary of films made exclusively for Netflix since I am still a firm believer in the fact that movies are meant to be seen in a theater and not on a computer. But I was pleasantly surprised by Klaus, which is essentially the origin story of Santa Claus. It’s forgettable, but it’s also a whole lot of fun with a surprising amount of heart as well (yes, I did cry a couple times). A great find, just in time for the holidays.
Now, the meat of the review. Each of the movies from Japan that I have written about on this list brings something to the table; from the impeccably created world of Spirited Away to strong-willed protagonist of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, there is something special about Japanese animation. For me, Akira is the movie that takes all the amazing ingredients that make an animated movie great – the characters, the world, the narrative – and turns it into something incredible.
I first saw Akira in my junior year of college as part of a class about Japanese media that primarily centers around the apocalypse (it was the classic liberal arts class on an incredibly niche topic that actually had a lot of content - I loved it). It makes sense that the film was on the syllabus; the apocalypse is the very thing that has created the world of Akira.
In other movies, the apocalypse signals the end of something bad and ushers in an era of goodness. This is not the case with Neo-Tokyo, a city that has risen from the ashes of what was once Tokyo. Neo-Tokyo is overrun with crime, corruption, terrorism, and violence. It’s not a pretty world, but it’s a comprehensive one and director Katsuhiro Otomo makes sure that Neo-Tokyo is fully rendered in all its dirtiness and darkness.
While the world is fascinating, the plot of Akira is not particularly groundbreaking. After developing psychic powers, the government attempts to track down Tetsuo Shima. This is the main narrative thread, but the movie is really tied together by disparate threads and characters that make the story whiz along at the same speed of the film’s motorcycle gangs. There is an evil government, there is the motorcycle gang that gets into trouble, there is the person who has been experimented on by said government. All of these characters swirl together in the mechanical dystopian soup of Neo-Tokyo, forming a rich and detailed space in which the audience sits with for the duration of the film.
At times Akira is shockingly violent, but these moments contribute to the harshness of the world of Neo-Tokyo. It almost signals a warning: this is what we will be like if the apocalypse ever hits. Japan, already having experienced one form of an apocalyptic event with the atomic bomb, knows what that is like. Akira is almost a parable for what could happen after another event. It’s this kind of prescience that makes Akira an incredible science-fiction film; it predicts a world that is not too far off, since, in a sense, it has happened before.
Akira is an achievement that has gained a cult following and for good reason. It’s layered, entertaining, and most of all, a warning. It’s a pressing film and an important one and for that reason, it almost made it to my #1.
Jeremy’s #2: Pinocchio
It is impossible to understate the significance of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ contribution to animation, and even cinema. Sergei Eisenstein, who himself is one of the great film directors (Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible Part I and II) hailed Snow White as the greatest film ever made. Made in 1937, two years before The Wizard of Oz, the world had never seen a world as magical as Snow White’s. The use of color, the creation of animals to aid Snow White with her chores, the music numbers, including her beautiful “Someday my Prince Will Come” and the ever energetic “Heigh Ho”, the helpful Dwarfs who fall in love with Snow White just as we do, Snow White was a leap forward in animation, using techniques to make consistent background cells and upping the number of frames to be consistent per second. This had been done before in five-minute shorts, but never for a feature-length film. Snow White gave birth to the animated film and Disney forever cemented himself as a visionary in cinema.
That being said, for me, the great Walt Disney animated film came after the innovation of Snow White. Yes, there were new techniques of animation developed in his later films and Fantasia played with sound like no movie before it, even though none quite lived up to the historical importance of Snow White. That being said though, Disney’s follow up to Snow White, Pinocchio, made in 1940, is a nearly perfect film; one of the greatest of all time. From creating memorable lasting characters, to providing genuine terror, to showcasing the hero’s journey in such a masterful well that few have matched it (The Wizard of Oz, Princess Bride, and Star Wars: A New Hope might be such films), Pinocchio remains the film that critics and audiences come back to time after time.
The film begins with an older man, who has for generations made toys for other boys and girls, wishing and praying to a star that he too might one day have a boy. The real desire for fatherhood, from a lonely man in his elder years, is such a moving image. Geppetto’s desire for someone to love, to care for, to father is such a fundamental human need. Here, a good man who has spent his days making other children happy, hopes that one day he can make toys for his own child. After his prayers, he goes to bed, but not before being heard by someone looking for a warm place to spend the night.
Hop in Jiminy Cricket, who in this movie became one of the great characters in all of cinema. After seeing Geppetto go to sleep, he sings “When You Wish Upon a Star”, a song that soars into our hearts and expresses the yearnings of all those who are lonely and hopeful. Then, the Blue Fairy appears to grant Geppetto’s wish. She transforms his latest and greatest creation, the puppet Pinocchio, into a living being. Not being quite a “real boy” yet, she entrusts his care to Jiminy Cricket who she dubs his conscience. She informs Pinocchio that only he can turn himself into a real boy. That her powers do not grant her that ability. Allowing Pinocchio to contain the power to transform himself reminds the audience of our own power to decide our future.
Pinocchio is the epitome of what it means to be young. He wants to please everyone he meets, especially his father. He wants to fit in and be just like everyone else. On his first day of school, he marches off to school, knowing he will do the right thing.
This is the beginning of the Hero’s Journey; the journey we all take in life to go from being young to grown-up. For the Hero’s Journey, the hero must have a call, an awakening. In this case, Pinocchio’s is to become a real boy. He sets off on a quest to do this, not knowing that which awaits him. To do so, he must journey beyond the threshold of his known existence. Right away though, he meets a shady character: J. Worthington Foulfellow (has there been a better named character, ever?) who like Mephistopheles tempts him with dreams of glory and acting. Man… to be young again. To be so easily swept up in flights of fancy that are so tempting and seem so real. Like all of us, Pinocchio, at first, makes bad decisions. It is in these decisions that we learn and grow.
Wanting to become a famous actor, he journeys with Foulfellow, away from school and his conscience to join Stromboli’s puppet show. Foulfellow realizes he can make a big sum by selling Pinocchio to Stromboli. Foulfellow always reminded me of the Duke from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But, like so many times, the dream proves to be less than imagined. In fact, this is where Disney goes to extremes. Basically, a form of child slavery, Pinocchio is taken by Stromboli and locked in a cage, told he will only be let out to perform and, if not, be made into firewood. This truly frightened me as a child because it too strikes at the heart of all fears: being responsible for never seeing your family again. While he is away, Geppetto launches on his own quest to find his son.
Eventually, Jiminy comes to save the day and to teach Pinocchio one of the most classic lessons of all children: do not lie. The famous scene of his nose growing is embedded into our common culture and proves to be a moving moment even to this day. It will not be the last mistake he makes. It also demonstrates how lying for us comes from fear of being responsible. And when we lie, we often compound that lie with other lies to try and distract from the feeling of guilty we hold. Pinocchio knows he made the wrong decision, but it is hard for him to admit his own responsibility in it.
After escaping Stromboli, Pinocchio, again, finds himself not following the right path and instead going to a fantasy island where he can be young and a kid forever, or so he is told. The fear of growing up when young is real. The idea of playing forever and never having any responsibility is a truly captivating idea. This of course has led to other immortal works such as J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It is here that Pinocchio symbolically reaches teenage years. He gets drunk. He steals. He rebels against authority and slowly, without realizing it, he is becoming a literal jackass: the fate of all male teenagers. Realizing what is going on, and in another truly frightening scene, Pinocchio sees the Coachman (voiced by the same actor who plays Stromboli) driving children transformed into donkeys onto a boat with a whip. Here, once again, his conscience comes to save him.
At this point, Pinocchio realizes the importance of home and returns only to find out that his father long since left to find him. Pinocchio realizing that he is responsible for this, ventures off to find him. Unfortunately, his father has been swallowed by the giant Whale Monstro who sleeps on the bottom of the ocean. Tying a rock to his tail (we are all scarred by our teenage years), he drops himself into the ocean to find his father. Eventually, he does and having grown up, realizes how he can save everyone.
This is all our journey, but so often we don’t recognize the magic of our own lives and the power of our own decisions. We chide ourselves for our mistakes rather than grow and learn from them. Pinocchio stands the test of time as a masterpiece unparalleled by anything else Disney himself ever made. The movie is magic itself, an adventure, full of terror and joy, wonders and horrors. It speaks to generation after generation. In fact, the movie is so magical that the opening shot of the film in the town still to this day… we have no idea how Disney did it.
The opening shot had to have been filmed via a rolling piece of art, but with the lens and the depth of field available, the drawing must have been the size of a room, attached to a spool that rolled it as the camera moved. We still don’t know how he did it… I’d rather not find out because some things are indeed magic.
