Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japanese: 風の谷のナウシカ, Hepburn: Kaze no Tani no Naushika) is a 1984 Japanese post-apocalyptic anime fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his 1982–94 manga series of the same name.
I first watched this in 1997, when a friend acquired a Japanese version on VHS and we printed off an English script from the internet… except that it only covered about two thirds of the movie — we were so lost 😂 I’m annoyed because when I bought the streaming version, I had to choose between the English dub and the Japanese. Fortunately, the English dub is pretty good (it’s got Patrick Stewart!).
The plot is fast-paced, jumping from travail to travail, but many of the scenes are almost ponderous, lingering on a man in a blowing cape looking off towards the horizon. I think this might help balance the heavy themes.
The environmental and anti-war themes are very on the nose in the (English) dialogue — I wonder if the Japanese might have more nuance? This is… very much the trauma of WWII: the unexpected annihilation of cities, the unimaginable world-destroying weapons and those who would use them.
Such a wonderful introduction; first seeing the grim destruction of the toxic jungle through the eyes of distrustful Lord Yupa, then contrasting Nausicaä’s pleasured wonder at interacting with the environment — the tone shifts marvelously from grim and fearful to accepting and full of awe when the two characters are in similar forests.
I can see the traces of 1960s and 1970s sci-fi art (book covers, Moebius) in the animation and world design. The way the ohmu shells move is echoed later in Howl’s Moving Castle.