Lucas
Versantvoort / 19 September 2014
It’s easy to see
why My Neighbors the Yamadas wasn’t a
success at the box office. It lacks the vivid colors of Miyazaki’s films, there
are no fantastical elements like magic, dragons and what have you, and the plot
is so slice of life-y it’s as far removed from what you might expect of a
typical Ghibli film. Nevertheless, because Isao Takahata directed it, Yamadas rises above a typical slice of
life film and becomes a celebration of daily life, presenting ‘real’ people and
bursting with little, enjoyable details.
As with many films in the slice of
life genre, the plot isn’t exactly heavy on dramatic twists and full-on drama. Rather,
it is structured as a series of vignettes and excels in instilling a sense of
watching a real family go about its business, watching the members do various
things and have things happen to them and, crucially, feeling that ear-to-ear
grin emerge on your face when you relate to what’s occurring on screen. Little
things like the father’s inevitable need to be the hero of the family,
resulting in a dream sequence in which he saves his family from peril; the father
and mother arguing over who gets to use the remote; the father deciding he’ll
do the grocery shopping only to forget certain items; the daughter realizing
that there was a time when her father and mother weren’t married; the family
dog seemingly judging the family with a perpetually cynical look on his face,
etc. It’s all done with humor and genuine insight to and love for human beings.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the fact that despite the film’s heavy focus
on comedy, it never feel condescending. It never feels like the stuff on tv
that passes for comedy these days. Characters – and therefore the audience –
are always taken seriously.
As with all of Takahata’s output,
the visuals are crucial for understanding the story and characters. It’s the
most minimalist of all Ghibli films, feeling like the almost childishly drawn
versions of the flashback sequences from Only
Yesterday. Characters are drawn with a handful of lines, environments are
sparsely rendered, a lot of the time most of the screen is white, which makes
all the more hilarious the fact that this is the first Ghibli film that has
been made mostly on computers. It seems like Takahata was going for a ‘less is
more’ approach. Not only did he go against the established Ghibli ‘look’, but
he also showed how it’s possible to tell a convincing story, to portray ‘real’
people and provoke audience sympathy with a minimal amount of brushstrokes. Not
only that, the simplicity of the visual style corresponds with the equally ‘simple’
family life the film portrays. The film also exhibits Takahata’s penchant for
combining a highly realistic style with surreal flights of fancy (as seen in wonderful
opening scene that has to be seen to be believed).
If by reading the above plot summary
(if one can call it a plot), you are instantly turned off by the prospect of
intense boredom, then this film might not be for you. It requires patience, but
those who possess it and give this film a chance will be highly rewarded. In
lesser hands, this could have been highly clichéd, but in Takahata’s hands, it’s
an experience that – very much like Only
Yesterday – feels life-affirming, a celebration of life that feels funny
and honest.
Stray
observation:
I hate to be the one to heat up the East Versus West debate, but
one can’t help but marvel at the daring shown by Takahata in his Ghibli films
and compare that to Disney or Pixar who, despite their impressive output, have
always had trouble venturing outside the fantasy, high adventure genre. I’m
usually not one for pigeonholing, but I’ll do it for the sake of the following
joke: whereas Takahata is advancing the medium one film at a time, Disney and
Pixar are having meetings about what type of animal they haven’t literally
given a voice to yet.
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