Film director Koji Fukada won the Jury Prize in the ``Un Certain Regard'' category at the 69th Cannes Film Festival for his 2016 film ` `Harmonium, '' and was also awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. Director Fukada is steadily establishing his career, but how did he first encounter film? This time, I received a special contribution.
Index
- “Laputa” instantly captivated me as a second-year junior high school student.
- Hayao Miyazaki's greatest charm
- What is an adventure drama without villains?
- Favorite Hayao Miyazaki work
“Laputa” instantly captivated me as a second-year junior high school student.
When people ask me, ``How did you first encounter movies?'' I always mention `` Whisper of the Bees ,'' which I saw when I was in the third year of junior high school. Filmed in Spain in 1972, it is a masterpiece directed by Victor Erice that will go down in film history. I learned his name from a movie criticism book I was reading at the time. I remember turning off the lights in the living room late at night, when my family was asleep, watching it alone on cable TV, and feeling deeply moved. The look in the eyes of Anna Torrent, who played the lead role, plunged my life into the abyss of cinema.
But to tell you the truth, the first movie I ever fell in love with wasn't The Whisperer of Bees. My father was a movie buff and had hundreds of old and new VHS tapes sitting here and there on the shelves in his living room, and this was one of them. It's ``Laputa: Castle in the Sky ''. I first saw Laputa in the spring of my second year of junior high school, and it instantly captivated me.
Despite this, I can't deny that I tend to cite ``Whisper of the Bees'' as the starting point for my involvement with movies because of my cinephile self-consciousness, but more than anything, at the time I was inspired by ``Laputa: Castle in the Sky.'' On the other hand, I didn't realize that I was watching a ``movie.'' I enjoyed it as an experience, transcending genres such as movies and anime, and simply respected Hayao Miyazaki.
I finished my euphoric elementary school days, but as soon as I entered junior high school, a life full of feelings of inferiority began, which continues to this day. I can't study, I thought I was good at drawing, but there's someone in the art club who's even better at it, and on top of that, I stutter and talk too fast, so I can't communicate well with others. For me, who was living such a depressing life, the world of ``Laputa'' where iron, steam, magic, adventure, humor, pure love, madness, and treasure were all mixed together was truly a thrilling and thrilling world. It was shining with color.
At the age of 14, I was completely obsessed with Hayao Miyazaki, and wrote a fantasy novel that was like a combination of Laputa and Nausicaa , which was the complete opposite of my obsessive literary nerd self. I admired Pazu, a healthy child, so much that for some reason I started jogging every morning. Oh yeah, the "spell" that Sheeta chants in Laputan language can also be said in the air, which made those around her creepy (and can still be said today).
Of course, interviews with Hayao Miyazaki and his staff, as well as guidebooks and reviews of his works, I searched for in used bookstores, bought them, and read them, The Day After even now, more than 20 years later, they occupy a corner of my bookshelf. I remember reading an eye-opening review by film critic Sozo Kishun that pointed out the vertical structure of Laputa's story.
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