Nausicaä, a hopeful memory
Art is and will always remain as my true, undying passion. The works that I have been lucky enough to consume have shaped who I am, have become as much a part of me as the people in my lives or the things I have. The ability to convey this importance, the ways in which good art makes life that much more worth living, is something that is incredibly important to me.
'Miyazaki’s films ooze life. Pure life, the kind that wakes you up one day, wherever you are, and reminds you that you are alive. Not just surviving, not just living day to day. That you are fully in tune and focused on the wonderful, exciting, breathtaking beauty that is all around you'
On a day that I can’t remember, on a holiday that is now just another fond memory floating in my mind, I happened to find myself in the Forbidden Planet store in London. I say happened to, the fact is I very consciously sought it out, as massive nerds like myself tend to do. During this little moment of me-time, buried in my own little bubble, isolated from the other worlds around me inhabited by bubbling not-so-alone fellow shoppers, I happened to find myself pleasantly surprised. I was surprised because I had found something that I thought I might never see, and yet had at many points thought about regardless. I had found a book all about the process of the production of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. A film that had a profound impact on me when I first watched it, in fact all of Miyazaki’s works have had a profound impact on me, as they have had on the millions and millions of people who have watched them.
But it wasn’t the incredibly well known and world-renowned filmmaker and occasionally controversial figure Hayao Miyazaki who worked on, wrote and directed this film. It was the at the time relatively unknown Hayao Miyazaki who wrote and directed this film, without the kind of worldwide acclaim and criticism that he receives and faces today. Nausicaa has all the trademark aspects of a Miyazaki film, and I would go so far as to argue that it does this job as good if not better than any that Miyazaki has made since. It is a film that gives me hope, as someone who is still finding his footing in the world, who feels unsure about his future, who doesn’t know what it holds, who isn’t always sure if it’s even there, if he will even live to see the outcome of his present struggles, if he will survive the things that at times drag him down and suck the air out of his life. It is a film that tells me that it is never too late to create something that so purely communicates your artistic spirit to the world, that it is never too late to stand up and fight, that it is never too late to find hope, wherever it may come from for you, it is always there, we need only look to it, even if it is the hope to simply live another day.
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​If you want to read the full article, you can do so at:
https://www.uk-anime.net/articles/Nausica%C3%A4,_a_hopeful_memory.html