Movie Review: Nausicaa

Nausicaa is one of the first feature length films by legendary anime film director Hayao Miyazaki. It was originally released in 1984, but only now available in a US version due to the success of his later films 1997’s Princess Mononoke and 2001’s Spirited Away, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Film. While watching I was trying to set the context of what animated films were like in 1984. In the US, Disney’s The Little Mermaid was still 5 years away and in Japan, the film Akira was still 4 years away. Miyazaki films are known for having a child protagonist, ecological themes, a fascination with aircraft and a lack of traditional villains and all are evident here.

The story centers on Nausicaa, a Princess from the Valley of the Winds in a post-apocalyptic Earth. A thousand years before, the world suffered the Seven Days of Fire and a Toxic Jungle formed protected by large deadly insects (called Ohmu, think of the worms from Dune). Mankind was segregated into separate kingdoms which now are mostly warring. The Valley of the Winds (odd that it has no other name) seems to be the only peaceful land. The winds keep out the jungle’s toxic spores. Princess Nausicaa has remarkable empathy for other people, nature and even the Ohmu. She performs aerobatics on her powered glider, and calms enraged Ohmu (their eyes change from red to blue) in a way no other person can. We meet two other kingdoms, the Tolmekian and the Sujite, who each want to destroy the toxic jungle, each other, and the Valley of the Wind. Each of the three kingdoms have their own plans, characters, airships and weapons to keep track of, and the jungle and insects act as a fourth kingdom with its own characteristics. As with any good epic fantasy, Nausicaa finds herself at the center of all this as the kingdoms collide.

The story is engaging and the animation wonderfully organic. This is before the time of computer animation and while it’s clearly anime, there are no huge round eyes nor excessive panning over still images. The overall theme seemed quite obvious, we should embrace nature not try to destroy it. Nausicaa seems remarkably gifted but we’re given no background as to why or how. This is sometimes jarring, as when we learn amongst her other pursuits she’s been secretly studying deadly plants and finding them non-toxic; if she’s discovered this why not tell anyone? Nevertheless, it’s easy to recommend this film to anyone with an interest in animation, fantasy, epics, or even girl-power.

This DVD, released in Feb 2005, contains the original Japanese with English subtitles and a new English dubbed soundtrack with the voices of Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman and Edward James Olmos. Unfortunately Alison Lohman does a mediocre at best job as the voice of Nausicaa, so I recommend the Japanese version with subtitles.