Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
by Hayao Miyazaki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gorô Naya, Hisako Kyôda, Ichirô Nagai, Mahito Tsujimura, Sumi ShimamotoDirector: Hayao Miyazaki
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
Producer: Isao Takahata
Producer: Michio Kondô
Producer: Ned Lott
Producer: Rick Dempsey
Producer: Toru Hara
Producer: Yasuyoshi Tokuma
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.1; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.1; Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.1; Japanese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.1
Format: Anamorphic, Animated, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-22
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Walt Disney Home Entertainment
Product features:
- From one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animation and the creator of the Academy Award(R)-winning SPIRITED AWAY (Best Animated Featured Film, 2002) comes Hayao Miyazaki's epic masterpiece NAUSICA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND. A thousand years after a global war, a seaside kingdom known as the Valley Of The Wind remains one of only a few areas still populated. Led by the coura
Movie Reviews of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Movie Review: Finally! An unabridged US version of a Miyazaki masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
In the early nineties, one of my pre-school daughter's favorite videos was something entitled WARRIORS OF THE WIND. As an adult, I found much in it to be of interest, and much of the animation to be of an exceedingly high quality, but overall the film lacked balance and a cohesive structure to make it a truly great animated film. Later I learned that the animator/writer/director Hiyao Miyazaki had been horrified with the way his Japanese original had been transferred into English and that many of the ecological concerns of the film had been muted by aggressive editing on the part of the American distributors. During the past two decades the English-language revision of NAUSICAA AND THE VALLEY OF THE WIND, the film which through reediting became WARRIORS OF THE WIND has generated as much anger as any film ever made. Now, however, arguably the greatest injustice in the history of animation has been redressed with a marvelous new edition of what is easily one of Miyazaki's greatest achievements.
There is a lot of debate about where NAUSICAA AND THE VALLEY OF THE WIND stands among all of Miyazaki's films Even while there has been a growing consensus that Miyazaki is the greatest maker of feature length animated film ever, there is controversy as to whether this film is or is not his greatest film. I'll confess my bias that it is his finest film, though I certainly can understand why someone would defend the assertion that THE PRINCESS MONONOKE or SPIRITED AWAY deserves that designation. Both of those films are a bit more polished and even more lavishly and elaborately drawn. My own reasons for preferring NAUSICAA are several. First, I personally believe that NAUSICAA is the first truly great Miyazaki film. Although he had done many superb films before this one, it was at this point that his art reached an apex that he has matched on other occasions, but never unquestionably surpassed. Second, I loved the story, both the scope of Miyazaki's vision, the cohesiveness of his narrative, and the richness of the moral message underlying the film. Finally, the animation of the film just blew me away even in the bowdlerized version of the film, and does so even more in this fully restored version. Miyazaki pioneered in animation the framing of images in cinematic fashion. For instance, Miyazaki manipulates in scenes in which Nausicaa flies her glider beside a larger ship to be from the same point of view a camera would be if it were a live action scene. His perspective is always driven by an imaginary camera, unlike, say, the Disney films, in none of whose films from the forties to the eighties can be found a similar manipulation of perspective. Several Disney films from the late eighties to the present display such perspective at times, but I would suggest that it is not an accident that these were made after Miyazaki had perfected the technique in a number of films. Perhaps Miyazaki has made minor improvements in his films since NAUSICAA, but none represent the quantum leap forward that this one did.
One reason my daughter watched and rewatched WARRIORS OF THE WIND, until she literally wore out the video, was the lead character. If my memory serves me correctly, they changed the central character's name from Nausicaa to some far blander name, a change that is emblematic for the production as a whole. But even in that version, Nausicaa stood out as not merely one of the most compelling heroines in animated film, but in all films. In fact, even today Nausicaa compares favorably with such characters as Ripley from the ALIEN films and Buffy Summers as a compelling heroine. She is at moments subject to the kind of preciousness that mars many moments in anime in particular and Asian film in general (think of key moments in films when Jackie Chan ceases his chase of the villains to save a baby in danger, or the way in this one where Nausicaa cuddles with the half cat/half fox creature that attaches itself to her), but all in all, she is utterly courageous, amazingly inventive, unstintingly moral and compassionate, fiercely uncompromising in her principles, and unfailingly resourceful. In scene after scene after scene, Miyazaki invents new and strangely believable ways for his diminutive heroine to resolve seemingly impossible crises. By the end of the film, one has as much confidence in Nausicaa to save the day as Superman or Batman or Indiana Jones. As the father of a girl I can't express how important it was to her when she was young to have such a female heroine to enjoy. Male or female, heroic characters do not come any better than Nausicaa.
No review of this film would be complete without adding some praise for the score. Although I had a tad bit of trouble with the childlike voice that intentionally intones lyrics slightly off key (Sarah Vaughan would famously sing out of tune when she would sing the Ira Gershwin line "The way you sing off key," but she even sang off key musically in a way that enhanced the song as a whole) to produce a decidedly irritating effect, the score as a whole is amazingly effective.
The wonderful thing about the entire series of new issues of the entire Miyazaki catalog is that they consistently provide both the original which can be watched with subtitles and an extremely high quality dubbed version. In live action films I am an unstinting purist. I simply won't watch a dubbed version of a film with live actors, since one gains so much from hearing the actual voices of the actors. I always get a kick on the X-FILES DVDs listening to the various foreign language dubbings and chuckling at the gap between, say, the voice of Gillian Anderson as Scully and the voice of the low-voiced actress dubbing her into German. But with animation it is a different matter. For one thing, the animated characters do not possess actual voices, but have only what any actor gives them. Additionally, animation is even more than live action films driven by the images on the screen. I find I always enjoy the visual aspect of the film more by not having to focus both on what is on the screen and on subtitles. Luckily, one can with this DVD set do both, watch it first in the dubbed version and then in the subtitled, or vice versa. I very much enjoyed the actors used to dub the English version. There were some obligatory big names-Patrick Stewart, who is outstanding as Lord Yupa, Alison Lohman (who voiced Nausicaa), Uma Thurman, Edward James Olmos-but most of the people were highly appropriate for the character they were dubbing.
My only complaint with the DVDs is the way that Disney programs the DVDs to try to steer you to an endless series of Disney commercials when the discs are first inserted. Such spamming is just not appropriate to DVDs and especially not to an otherwise high quality version of a Miyazaki classic. Still, I applaud Disney for taking the effort to make almost Miyazaki's entire incredibly impressive corpus available. Only a few years ago, before the release of PRINCESS MONONOKE, Miyazaki was still unknown to most American filmgoers. He still doesn't enjoy the reputation that he deserves, but the release of his films on DVD is treated as event even by Wal-Mart and Target. He truly is without his peer in the world of feature length film animation, for not only does he do an amazing percentage of the animation himself, he also writes the stories, and acts as both producer and director. No other great animator has involved himself in his films at such great length and in such detail.
Summary of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND - DVD MovieHayao Miyazaki gained widespread attention in Japan for his complex ecological manga series, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982), which he adapted for the screen two years later. One thousand years after a war devastated much of the Earth, humanity clings to existence at the fringes of a vast, polluted forest inhabited by monstrous insects. Only Nausicaä, the princess of the tiny realm of the Valley of the Wind, grasps the environmental significance of the forest. She sees beyond petty wars and national rivalries to the only viable future for the planet. In Nausicaä, Miyazaki began to explore elements he would develop more fully in his later films: daring, compassionate heroines; exciting flying sequences; colorful side characters; strong interpersonal relationships; and a call for an ecologically sustainable way of life. Nausicaä prefigures Sheeta in Castle in the Sky and Chihiro in Spirited Away, just as the rough and ready Asbel anticipates Pazu in Castle in the Sky and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. For years, Nausicaä was available in the United States only as the badly re-edited Warriors of the Wind. The new English dub from Disney presents the film in its entirety, with strong vocal performances by Uma Thurman, Patrick Stewart, Alison Lohman, and Edward James Olmos. (Rated PG: violence, frightening imagery) --Charles Solomon
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