Isao Takahata: Endless Memories

Part VII: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Part VII: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Isao Takahata's final film is perhaps the Isao Takahata-est, which is a highly academic turn of phrase to denote that The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is the crystallization of what we expect whenever Studio Ghibli's most talented director occupies the director's seat. Of course, it went outrageously over budget as every film of Takahata's ever created did. Of course, it was released several years beyond its initial schedule, as befitting a man that Hayao Miyazaki speculated as possibly being descended from a Pliocene era sloth. As usual, a staggeringly impressive attention to detail is placed on getting the mundane details of daily life just right, and just as we've come to expect the conclusion is more “melancholy with a bit of hope, maybe, if you think about it a certain way” than “happily ever after.”

I knew this would be Takahata's final film from the day The Tale of the Princess Kaguya was announced to the public, in 2009. We all did, really. Uncertainty abounded as to whether he'd survive long enough to see through its completion, and that was without our knowing that very year was when Isao Takahata was told by Hayao Miyazaki that he'd better give up smoking (which Miyazaki did per the request of Takahata's doctor, since the Japanese just hate to tell people they have cancer). Takahata had already been retired from directing films for a decade in the aftermath of My Neighbors the Yamadas, which to be honest is almost definitely my least favorite Isao Takahata-directed film of them all on account of my never having seen that documentary on canals. I had plenty of time to accept that Isao Takahata was through, and that his best days were behind him. But much like how The Story of Yanagawa's Canals ultimately gave rise to Studio Ghibli's formation, without My Neighbors the Yamadas having paved the way for how to make digital animation look like traditional watercolor sketches, Takahata never would have been able to find Princess Kaguya's visual aesthetic, which bears more resemblance to traditional woodblock prints or 12th century scroll paintings than to most modern Japanese animation. Well, I suppose the several years of preproduction work also proved vital, but I say he needed to make Yamadas and have it be not so well-received in order to realize that there's a happy medium to be had between the intricately detailed realism of his pre-1990s work and the ultra-minimalist approach he took in Yamadas. Why, I hadn't seen so much white space abstraction since Narumi Kakinouchi's Vampire Miyu manga!

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is, like so many of Isao Takahata's lauded masterpieces, an adaptation of a classic work of literature that I never bothered reading: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which is curiously titled considering that the bamboo cutter is not the focal character. Indeed, Takahata positions the bamboo cutter as the default antagonist simply by portraying him like a modern overbearing working-class dad, dead set that his kid amount to something “greater” than he was by insisting on the acquisition of all the conspicuous social status markers: a big house, fancy clothes, music lessons, a proper education, and—lest we forget this is ancient Japan—a high-ranking official for a husband. But Kaguya, that quickly-growing amnesiac moon princess (spoilers for a thousand-year-old tale which partially inspired Sailor Moon), doesn't need any of that to be happy. She just wants to be back home with her friends. That's one of the best hidden talents Isao Takahata had: the ability to adhere to all of the major narrative beats of existing source material without compromising character relatability. That's what allows a tale literally from millennia ago to remain captivating beyond the keen visuals and me wondering “is this handmaiden supposed to resemble Patalliro?”: the fact that you know people like this. Heck, maybe your own parents WERE people like this.

Could something so delayed, with so few details known ahead of release, ever hope to live up to the hype? When the closing credits began, I thought to myself “wow, that might actually be better than Only Yesterday, my previous favorite Takahata film.” In the end I decided against that, but it's not like I was thinking “whoa, was that even better than Porco Rosso / Princess Mononoke?” upon seeing Hayao Miyazaki's latest “final film” The Wind Rises (or Ponyo, or Howl's Moving Castle… or Spirited Away…) Did The Tale of Princess Kaguya make a ton of money? Not a chance; it's too visually avant-garde and is just objectionable enough to keep it off of “family” television in the US since while it is rated PG, it's for NUDITY. Besides, like Only Yesterday, it has the strongest emotional resonance once you're older yourself. I had hoped that perhaps Princess Kaguya's Academy Award nomination would somehow pull through to a victory, which would make everybody go out and see the thing, but in the end the Academy voters did as always and cast their vote for the one nominee they'd actually bothered to watch: Big Hero 6. I'm not even saying that movie is bad, but if you honestly think it's better than Princess Kaguya then you…will definitely be letting me know in the comments section!

Sure, I'm sad to see Isao Takahata go, but all things considered he lived into his 80s despite a lifetime of heavy smoking that ultimately resulted in the lung cancer which claimed his life. I'm not sure what Hayao Miyazaki's rationale was for, upon relaying the doctor's message to Takahata that he'd better give up smoking, making a point to always smoke around Takahata to taunt him into taking up smoking again (Takahata never did). I guess that sort of thing is expected after a decade-spanning friendly rivalry. And yet, on some level, I think Hayao Miyazaki knows that Isao Takahata truly went out firing on all cylinders, and so he is now determined to follow suit with How Do You Live?, a slightly better title than what I assumed Miyazaki would title his final film, “BETTAR Than your name.,” 90s web kid spelling and all. Flippancy aside, I'm certain the finished product is guaranteed to be affected due to “Paku-san” no longer being here, so if Isao Takahata was forever compared to Hayao Miyazaki in life, if in death he forced Miyazaki to create a retirement work that isn't middling the way his last twenty years of films have been, that'd just be the icing on the cake.