FILM REVIEW – YOUR NAME (2016)

Review written by Raul De Leon

Your Name (2016)

Move over Miyazaki! Makoto Shinkai just made the highest grossing anime of all time! I must say that I am surprised. Your Name is a great film but I did not expect such an intellectually stimulating anime to be such a big hit!

Two high school strangers; small town-girl Mitsuha and city-boy Taki, find themselves in the most bizarre situation. Every night when they fall asleep, they become the other person in their dreams. The dreams that are acted out, actually take place in real life. Each one effects the other’s very livelihood. What ensues, is a brain-stirring, fantastical romance that flowers through an ingenious contemplation on the nature of dreams and time.

Shinkai produces a truly one-of-a-kind visionary experience. He throws puzzle pieces onto your lap and let’s you play with them. As you try to piece it together, your emotion towards Mitsuha and Taki overrules and you realize that maybe this puzzle isn’t meant to connect as one precise unified structure. The story is too beautiful to be jammed into a logic compressor, but it’s so sapient that you find your head rattling in a left-brain, right-brain battle.

Your Name relishes in an illogical dreamscape. Mitsuha and Taki swim in this formless waiting room as two lost souls longing for one another. It’s a painful irony, that they can get as close to each other as living in each other’s shoes but cannot experience the other’s physical touch. We yearn for their encounter as much as they do. Shinkai sets it up so that we unconsciously long for the completion of feminine-masculine, country-city, and emotion-rationale, so that the brain hemisphere battle can come to peace.

As many twists and turns the film takes, it runs surprisingly smooth. I found myself especially enjoying the early minutes of the film, lost and wondering as to what is happening along with the characters. The story kicks in motion when they get a grasp on their situation and steadily influence each other’s lives. Then it flows into the combination of wonder and steadiness when they undergo a type of dream amnesia that has something to do with the passing of a comet. Even though they love each other, they just cannot grasp who the other is, finding themselves repeatedly asking the question “what is your name?”.

Everything is fittingly nestled into a colorful vibrancy. The pink and blue twilight match the recurring pink and blue streaking comet that soars so beautifully over the city skyline and open countryside. The comet tails cross over one another, mirroring the film’s conveyance of non-linear time and Mitsuha’s red string of fate that she wears in her hair. The trees, the objects, the people, everything in every scene is glossy, clean, and crisp. Shinkai has made his personal stamp on the wonderful world of animation.

Your Name is a delight that will offer more upon repeated viewings. You may not understand everything that happens the first time around but that’s also part of the fun. Some confusion comes naturally with the film but it is seated into an abundance of love and controlled imagination, making Your Name a unique experience and one of the best films of the year.

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If you liked Your Name, you might also like: A Silent Voice (2016), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), Paprika (2006), 2046 (2004), other films by Makoto Shinkai.

Check out the rest of my reviews on my website: cerebralfilmreviews.com.

FILM REVIEW – MOANA (2016)

Review written by Raul De Leon

Moana (2016)

“Moana” is the Hawaiian word for “sea” and also the name of our lead character – a perfect title for a delightfully animated island adventure.

Moana is the teenage daughter of the chief of a small island village in Polynesia. She is gradually managing the village that she will soon takeover as chief, but it is dying from the spread of an ancient curse. Long ago, a native Demigod named Maui, cursed the neighboring island of Te Fiti by removing its heart. Moana is chosen by the sea itself to find Maui, restore the heart to Te Fiti, and bring life back to the land. Her voyage across the waters and through the islands is the ultimate test of perseverance, involving a constant battle with an uncooperative demigod-partner, fighting violent, greedy coconut-pirates, retrieving a magical weapon from a jewel-hoarding giant crab, and defeating a colossal, demonic lava monster.

This is everything you expect from a modern Disney animation; a mixed bag of action, adventure, and comedy, backed by strong willed determination and inspiration. The narrative elements are habitual, making the story fairly flat-lined and predictable. But the tidal wave of fun you’ll have watching these charismatic characters will rinse that loose dirt right off.

Usually when you think of female Disney leads, you think of sweet, purified, princesses. Not here. Moana resembles the likes of Mulan; an unshakeable hero whose bravery trumps over women and men alike, and in this case, even a demigod. Moana will inspire today’s young girls to excel as an independent force and as a moral warrior. The fifteen year old voice actress Auli’i Cravalho is an inspiration herself, being a rarely hired Hawaiian-born talent and making her acting debut! Maui can teach ‘macho boys’ to respect feminine leadership. He is arrogant about his place as a demigod, but it doesn’t do him any good. Maui comically learns to overcome his ego and follow the lead of the mortal Moana with the help of his alter-ego, which is his very own sentient, mobile body tattoo.

Perhaps the best character is the environment itself. The water and islands come alive both literally and figuratively. This setting allows for Disney’s animation team to really show off their talent. Moana is filled with beautifully polished scenery. Sunlight radiates the untampered white sand and the cool blue ocean sparkles alongside the fresh green vegetation, producing clean oxygen for healthy, happy villagers. Moana‘s atmosphere is so refreshing, viewers get to take a two hour vacation of their own with just a fourteen dollar ticket stub.

We’re also treated to some talented singing and songwriting. Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda inspires us with “How Far I’ll Go” sung by Moana (Cravalho). Unexpectedly, Miranda also gives us a taste of the late great David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” with the song “Shiny”, sung by the crab Tamatoa (Clement).

From a writing perspective, the story of Moana is a simple recycle with a change of location and characters. Nothing is going to surprise you. You know what is going to happen but you’ll enjoy it anyway. Moana is playful, funny, and easy on the eyes. This is a getaway from life, a reward. So I suggest you put your evaluation pad aside, kick your feet up, crack open some coconuts, insert a swirly straw, and enjoy the fresh sips of water that Moana delivers.

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If you liked Moana, you might also like: Mulan (1998), Lilo and Stitch (2002), The Little Mermaid (1989), Zootopia (2016), Brave (2012).

Check out the rest of my reviews on my website: cerebralfilmreviews.com.

FILM REVIEW – FANTASTIC PLANET (1973)

Fantastic Planet (1973)

Fantastic Planet (1973) is a seventy-two minute long stop-motion science fiction film, based on Stefan Wul’s novel Oms en Serie, and directed by the French auteur Rene Laloux. The film won the Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize in 1973. This prestigious honor was likely awarded because of the film’s originality, animation, and relevance to mankind.

In Laloux’s fantastical tale, blue humanoid giants, called Draags, are the highest form of intelligent life on planet Ygam. Humans (referred to as Oms) live as alien prey on the bizarre planet. Some Oms are used as pets by the Draags, and those Oms who live freely in small communities, are considered wild. Oms are essentially the crown insects of planet Ygam; forced to utilize their intellect to survive in a world of giants.

Terr (Eric Baugin – Young / Jean Valmont – Adult ) is an infant Om who is raised by a loving Draag and eventually escapes as an adolescent. He joins a community of wild Oms, bringing advanced Draag knowledge and technology with him; specifically, giant headphones that emit important Draag transmissions. The Oms secretly learn the science and culture of the Draags, allowing them to resist the Draags’ control and brutality.

Laloux’s allegory really puts humanity’s position on earth into perspective. The cruelty of the Draags, exposes mans’ own cynical ways with our selfish bias towards intelligence and appearance. It also reveals that our obsession with trivial self-gratification is so strong that the extinction of another species as an expense, can go as far as being viewed as a necessity. Laloux matter-of-factly lays out the “How would you like it if you were _____ (not treated well)” argument by situating mankind in the patsy insect world.

Ygam is an inhabitable Salvador Dali landscape. Animals and nature appear as evolutionary miracles. In one scene, Oms travel across a topography of what looks like noodles, that raise and arch at random. In another, spherical snail-things cover Terr’s body with red saliva-foam to knit clothing over his body. When Draag’s meditate, their pupils dissolve and their astral bodies travel the skies together. The Draag’s can also morphogentically transpose their bodies with one another, for reasons that go unexplained. By constantly situating the Oms within these surreal environments, the realistic lifestyle of “lesser” lifeforms is repeatedly reinforced.

Fantastic Planet is short, but tremendously effective and refreshing. Laloux’s style of storytelling and animation is markedly distinct in comparison to all. His wandering allegories are stimulating and his peculiar, down-tempo animation always offers something new. Fantastic Planet is executed, the way films ought to be executed; with passion and imagination.

If you liked Fantastic Planet, you might also like; Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015), Zootopia (2016), A Bug’s Life (1998), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982), and other films by Rene Laloux.