from up on poppy hill (goro miyazaki, 2011)
Saturday, September 21, 2024
This is the third film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 3 is called "Nicecore Week":
After the stress of last week, let's go the other direction and take it easy with a nice film. Specifically Nicecore, a term I first heard several years ago associated with the release of Paddington 2. “If you’re kind and polite, the world will be right," says the titular bear. In the rather unkind political reality during which the term arose, people looked to the movies for "radical kindness". Although these films are "nice", they can still hold emotional depth, conflict, and complexity. This list is a helpful reference, from Winnie the Pooh to Totoro too.
This week let's celebrate all kinds of kindness and watch a previously unseen Nicecore film.
This is the second film directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of the great Hayao (who co-wrote the script). Compared to some of the classic Ghibli movies, From Up on Poppy Hill is relatively straightforward, missing much of the flights of fantasy associated with Goro's father. It tells the story of teenage love in 1963 Japan, with specific ties to the history of the time. This works fine, so maybe it's on me, but I kept waiting for supernatural beings to turn up, if not Totoro, at least some soot bunnies. The plot, about young romance and coming-of-age family life, captures our attention, and there's really nothing wrong with the movie. It just wasn't quite what I wanted.
That's no one's fault but my own, and your mileage may vary. It is a very good movie. Also, being set in 1963 Japan, it includes a nostalgic memory from my own youth. In 1963, a Japanese pop hit, "Ue o Muite Arukō", was released in the United States under the title "Sukiyaki", where it reached #1 on the charts.
Many years later, my niece gave herself a birthday party where she asked each of us to present something special, not a gift but something creative. I printed out the words to "Ue o Muite Arukō", downloaded a karaoke version and adjusted the pitch to fit my vocal range, and for the party, I sang the song, reading the lyrics off the page. Afterwards, the crowd was split between those who said "I didn't know he could sing" and those who said "I didn't know he spoke Japanese".
I'm not the only American who remembers that song. Bob Dylan played it in Japan in 1986:
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