Whenever I see quality artwork from any of the Ghibli films, that makes me more eager for the eventual Blu-Ray releases. Animation films are especially brilliant on the high-definition format, and I'm frankly surprised at how quickly traditional DVD begins to look fuzzy and unfocused to my eyes.
Kiki's Delivery Service tends to get thrown in the back of the pack of Ghibli's films, and that's really unfair, because it's such a wonderful and entertaining movie. I expect once it's released on Blu-Ray, Kiki will win over new audiences. Just imagine all these details and vivid colors leaping out of your HDTV. I can't wait.
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i looove kiki. the delicate characterization, and those beautiful, beautiful backgrounds.
i agree with those who wish that miyazaki had gone back to tv after kiki and turned it into a series. it would have made a lovely series, and i'm not sure that miyazaki has bettered it and his other classics up to that point in his work for the big screen since then.
(for the purposes of the previous comment, i'm not counting whisper of the heart as a miyazaki film.)
^^
Kiki has some of the most wonderfully profound statements ever on "finding" yourself. It's like one of those handbooks for life which can benefit us all.
Not only is Kiki about finding yourself, it's about what is left behind in the journey. It's as much a story about the end of childhood as the beginning of adolescence and adulthood. And it's very honest in that regard
agreed - because of the truthfulness of it, i can't think of a character in a miyazaki film with whom i identify more than i do with kiki.
identification isn't the only way of getting into a film, but it's one way, and for me kiki's delivery service activates it especially.
Miyazaki is skillful at presenting characters that are complex and nuanced. We are shown characters with faults and failings, and very often they find themselves in difficult situations without any any solutions.
I think this is what gets at the heart of Kiki's Delivery Service. It's a teenage coming-of-age story that captures the turbulence of that age. It shows the girl losing her childhood, and those connections (her cat, her mother), then struggling to create a new identity, build new connections.
Character identification is one of the crucial hallmarks of animation, comics, and painting. It's how the viewer becomes an active participant, and not merely a passive observer. The brilliance of a storyteller like Miyazaki or Takahata lies in the ability to enable you to identify with those characters, while allowing you the freedom to step back, question, take stock. These are not perfect smiley faces, but complicated persons who struggle to find themselves.
Does that make any sense?
i think you're taking "identification" more generally than me. (it's a word in ordinary language, so naturally there are different ways of applying it!)
what i mean about kiki is something like this: i worship nausicäa and am emotionally involved in her adventures; i recognise satsuki's responses and sympathise with her in her panic; i enjoy the excitement involved in seeing the action from the point of view of patzu and shita.
but the subtle, ordinary, painful, gentle, true portrait of kiki's experiences makes me feel that i am kiki, in a way i could never be nausicaä, say!
I love the poster of Kiki you post a couple years ago, this one in fact...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/Kiki%27s_Delivery_Service_(Movie).jpg
Love this Kiki's Delivery Service.Great quality of service.
-Stephanie
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