The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Ella Taylor started her review out by saying, “My first encounter with the lovely 10th-century Japanese folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter was in the Sesame Street special Big Bird Goes to Japan. A kind and beautiful young woman named Kaguya-hime appears out of nowhere to take the Yellow One and his canine pal Barkley on a jaunt to Kyoto. They have fun, and then the mysteriously sad woman reveals that she is royalty in civilian dress and must return to her home on the moon. Bird and Barkley were marginally less inconsolable than were my toddler daughter and I.” We all handled, as will every other child old or young when they see the beautiful “The Tale of Princess Kaguya.”

As the tale is told, the princess was sent to Earth as punishment for an unknown misbehavior. We don’t find out what her punishment was in “The Tale of Princess Kaguya,” the 2013 movie from Hayao Miyazaki’s famous Studio Ghibli, whose hand-drawn, animated stories of vivacious radical girls have pleased so many kids and parents around the world. Taylor said, “Aside from their beauty, movies like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and the hands-down favorite around our house, Kiki's Delivery Service, brought to life a small army of exuberantly disobedient girls (and boys, now and again) bent on running their own experimental show.”

The plot is simple fairytale story. A baby falls from the sky and is found held inside a bamboo plant by a childless old woodcutter and his wife, voiced in the English-language dub by James Caan and Mary Steenburgen. They raise her as their own, and the respected nymph, voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz, runs around the forest with her group of peasant kids, a normal girl except for the unusual growth rate that bring her to womanhood at a fast rate. When her beauty and energy begin to gain attention, the old man, encouraged by ambition and greed, moves his daughter to court to marry her. Taylor said, “Pining for home and the handsome peasant boy (Darren Criss) she left behind, the distraught Kaguya-hime spurns her suitors (the Emperor (James Marsden) among them) by setting them impossible tasks. Take that, patriarchy.”

“The Tale of Princess Kaguya” is not directed by Miyazaki, who had announced his retirement after “The Wind Rises,” but by his longtime colleague Isao Takahata, who also made the heart-breaking “Grave of the Fireflies.” The new movie has all the traits of Ghibli animation style, include the beautiful palette, in this case a subtle watercolor of pastels reminding, with not a hint of cute, a country girl’s ecstatic harmony with nature. A bamboo forest cleverly changes color with the light. A leaf blows in the breeze. A toddler turns in her sleep and locks her arm around her adoptive mother. Taylor said, “Kaguya-hime is a wild thing in perpetual fluid motion, her long black hair flowing in sync with her body.” Broke into royal harness, she grows still and stiff under the heavy ceremonial vestments, the current movie of sadness until, finally, she takes control of her own fate.

Unlike many Studio Ghibli movies, “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” is not a collaboration with the Disney company, which may be one reason why it doesn’t have a happy ending as we would know in the West. Taylor said, “Like all fairy tales worth their salt, the movie trusts children to take on the big themes of life, death and despair included, and thus removes the sting.”

Kaguya leaves, as she has to, but with a space orchestra and a magic layer to help her through the transition. The moment of her leaving is come off with disturbing honesty, but also with a compassion that promises an end to suffering, wanting and loss – even, for those who want it, another future to come. Taylor said, “If I were rich, I'd give a boxed set of Studio Ghibli movies to every child on Earth at birth.” That is for the simple joy of the experience, and to see them all through the years.

This is my brother’s least favorite Studio Ghibli film because of how predictable it got later on in the movie. I can understand what he means, but I still love it. I like how it has the watercolor pastel style that I had never seen Ghibli try and do. Maybe in “My Neighbors the Yamadas,” but I don’t know if that counts. However, I think this is a good fairytale that girls will definitely like and enjoy, especially the parents watching it with them. Don’t skip this one and give it a watch.

Alright everyone tomorrow is finally it. I will be looking at the final film in “Studio Ghibli Month,” although I know there is one that is going to be released (I think) next year. Stay tuned because I’ll be going out with a bang this year with the final review of 2017.