March
1, 2005
One
of the great joys of watching a Takahata movie is waiting to see
what new visual style you will be presented with next. You always
expect a new roll of the dice. My Neighbors the Yamadas
may be his greatest surprise of them all. It is a mastery of Japanese
zen animation: visually sweeping and grand while being nothing at
all. This is among the most daring of all animated movies. Also,
it happens to be screamingly funny.
Yamadas
is an adaptation of a popular newspaper gag strip in Japan, one
of those crudely-drawn comics that everyone swears they could do
in their sleep if they really, really wanted to. This may seem lke
an unusual subject for the naturalist master who gave us Grave
of the Fireflies and Omohide
Poro Poro, but often, in the midst of all the sheer emotional
beauty of his movies, his keen sense of humor can be overlooked.
But make no mistake, Takahata can make you laugh as easily as he
can make you cry; after this movie, you'll believe he could completely
master any genre at will.
The
movie centers on a modern Japanese family: father Takashi, mother
Matsuko, grandmother Shige, son Noboru, and daughter Nonoko. For
the better part of two hours, we are taken through a roller coaster
of funny gags, humourous jabs, and the occassional slapstick.
When
it comes to adapting comic strips to the screen, the original work
is typically shoehorned into a full-length plot, complete with story
arc. This almost never works because gag strips are designed for
quick, choppy consumption. It's much like, say, taking the Marx
Brothers and handcuffing them to some stuffy plot. Thank goodness
that never happened, eh?
Takahata
finally did what everyone should have done long ago: he keeps the
comic strip as a comic strip. His movie is a glorious collection
of routines and vignettes. I'm watching this, and within sixty seconds,
I'm wondering out loud, "Why couldn't the Peanuts
movies be like this?" I wish I had the chance to grab Bill
Cosby by the arm show him this film, and say, "See? This is
how Fat Albert should have been made!" Yamadas
is like reading through your favorite Calvin and Hobbes
book.
The
early episode where Nonoko gets left at the mall is full of wisecracks.
A number of bits involve family members manipulating each other
(it seems whoever leaves the table first gets bagged as the gopher).
There's a part involving the grandma and a wayward ball that's always
hilarious. The sparring between the parents never gets old. And
there's a scene where Takashi endlessly hectores his wife that leaves
me in stiches.
The
funniest part of the movie, and I think this is a bona-fide classic
that should be taught in schools, is the battle over the remote.
The father wants to watch the baseball game, but the mother's looking
forward to the afternoon movie. She casually picks up the remote,
and just before she zaps the TV, Takashi's blocking the set with
his paper. So she tries to bounce the signal off the walls, and
he just moves to block it again. Within seconds, they're in a rediculous
mock-sword fight, complete with all the silly ballet poses.
Says
Nonoko, "Aw, now we can't see the TV." Shige replies,
"This is much more fun."
The
remote control fight does end, and I wouldn't dare give it away,
but you'll laugh your ass off. The only other time I cheer as loudly
is when I'm watching Star Wars and Greedo is getting shot under
the table. Maybe that's me; I can't bear to live in a world where
Greedo shoots first. It's just wrong.
The
look of Yamadas is absolutely stunning, quite unlike anything
ever seen. The look of the original comic strip is preserved, and
matched with a marvelous watercolor style, splashed fast and loose.
This kind of visual effect couldn't be achieved on traditional cells,
so the entire movie was drawn and painted on computers; the first
for Ghibli. Note that computers are used to aid the animation, not
completely take over as is the case in America.
Many
people will look at the screen and feel they are being cheated because
there's "nothing up there." This is just ignorance. Taking
cues from the 1960's segments in Omohide Poro Poro, Takahata has
the shots drawn with spare brushstrokes, almost minimalist. Again,
it's in keeping with the source material, but there's something
else at play. Over the past decade, he has become increasingly inspired
by the great artistic traditions of Japan's rich past. This became
one of the grand themes of Pom Poko, and in My Neighbors
the Yamadas the process has become completely absorbed.
The
composition of the shots are based upon Japanese watercolors, based
on the Eastern idea of zen and negative space. It invokes the spirit
of the great haiku poets; I was pleasantly surprised to actually
see written haikus appear on the screen as denouement to key scenes.
It fits perfectly.
This
brings me to another of Takahata's great talents: his many stylistic
shifts. The pacing of the movie shifts and swerves about, introducing
short asides (the tango number, for instance), and jumps into the
third dimension. There are two spectacular montages that bookend
the picture, when the roller coaster just flies off the rails and
everything just flies. The beginning montage flashes back to Takashi
and Matsuko's wedding, where an elderly woman's advice for their
future is played out as a series of symbolic reenactments. Whoever
thought up the connection between marriage and a bobsled team is
a genius, and whoever though to have that bobsled skid across the
wedding cake is even crazier.
We
are literally taken through famous paintings, including Hokusai's
Tsunami; we watch different cultures' take on The Stork (the children
are born from a beach and a bamboo stalk, respectively); we see
pirate battles; sharks attack a raft only to watch a shark attack
on TV; we see an underwater voyage straight out an illustrated children's
book; and we the grandmother towing a giant slug with, of all things,
a tricycle.
The
ending montage revolves around a karaoke rendering of "Que
Sera Sera," performed by voice actors who really sing like
normal people (you know what I mean), leading to a spectacular song-and-dance
complete with umbrellas, balloons, and fireworks. It's an animated
Abbey Road.
And,
true to form, this wouldn't be a Takahata movie without forays into
pathos. These don't happen too often, but the sadder, reflective
moments arrive in spots, as profound as always. It's the sort of
skill one only learns after spending years absorbing Yasujiro Ozu
and Charlie Chaplin (both of whom are quoted). There is also one
segment where Yamadas becomes dead serious, and veers from tension
to comedy to tragedy; the Aha music video, '60s pop culture and
Kurosawa's Ikiru in in ten minutes or your money back.
I
couldn't finish this essay without mentioning the wondrous, magnificent
music in this picture. Akiki Yano, a pop singer, provides music
and vocals to a number of tunes that have all the rhythm and bounce
of Burt Bacharach. It's absolutely terrific, just like all the great
Ghibli music you can never get out of your head. Not that this is
a bad thing. If you have any warm blood in you, you'll never want
this picture completely out of your head. |
