October
24, 2005
The
Citizen Kane of Japanese animation?
Quite
likely. At least that's the thesis I find myself coming to. The
movie I'm referring to is The Great Adventure of Horus,
Prince of the Sun, the Japanese animation masterpiece released
in 1968. If it isn't the greatest anime ever made (and one could
clearly argue the point), then clearly it is the most important.
Horus
was conceived at the Toei Doga studio, which was a leading animation
studio churning out movies and TV shows in Japan. It was the creation
of a collective of masterfully talented animators: Yasuji Mori,
Yasuo Otsuka, Yoichi Kotabe, and a brash, young Hayao Miyazaki.
The leader of the group was a prodigously skilled director named
Isao Takahata. Horus was his first feature film as director, and
he schemed up a grand story that would forever destroy the slavish
Walt Disney mold, reinvent animation as a form of serious filmmaking,
and make a sweeping statement for his politically-charged generation.
Horus
was birthed over the course of three long years, when Takahata endlessly
battled the executives of Toei, who expected another simple, Disney-esque
children's cartoon. He lost many of those battles: the film's setting
was moved from Japan's native peoples to Scandinavia, 30 minutes
were cut from the original two-hour length (a length unheard of
at that time), and two key scenes were never animated, due to their
extreme scale and complexity.
Toei
never knew what they had on their hands. Horus, Prince of the Sun
was released in 1968, and pulled from theatres after ten days. Takahata
was permanantly demoted, never allowed to direct again. But like
The Ramones, the film steadily built up a devoted following among
college students. In time Takahata, Miyazaki, Mori, Otsuka, and
Kotabe were vindicated a thousand times over, with the World Masterpiece
Theatre productions of the '70s, and with Takahata and Miyazaki,
Studio Ghibli.
Horus,
Prince of the Sun, essentially, created modern anime. It pushed
animation into the realm of serious, adult, complex themes - addressing
socialism, the student union movements, and the war in Vietnam,
wrapped up in the guise of a thrilling adventure. The film is loaded
with visual and technical innovations, aggressive camera movements
that would only be copied in the age of CGI, and in the tragic heroine
Hilda, the most psychologically complex character ever created for
an animated film.
Horus
is available on DVD in Japan, Portugal, France, and now the UK with
English-language subtitles for the first time. The French DVD, as
usual, has all the best extras, including over an hour of interviews
and features, and a 24-page booklet. The Japanese version has the
classic movie poster. The UK release, for some infuriating reason,
has slapped on an asinine, stupid title: "The Little Norse
Prince." 37 years later, and the suits still don't know what
they've got on their hands. |
