Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Composite Score: 81.43
Starring: Sumi Shimamoto / Alison Lohman, Gorô Naya / Patrick Stewart, Yoshiko Sakakibara / Uma Thurman, Iemasa Kayumi / Chris Sarandon, and Yôji Matsuda / Shia LaBeouf
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writers: Hayao Miyazaki and Cindy Davis (English adaptation) and Donald H. Hewitt (English adaptation)
Genres: Animation, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Drama, Postapocalyptic
MPAA Rating: PG for violence
Box Office: $8.74 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is an early Studio Ghibli film from Hayao Miyazaki about a postapocalyptic world and the different societies struggling to survive in it. Its themes remain relevant to an audience almost forty years removed from its original production. The film speaks to issues of global war, arms races, pollution, the importance of human-environment interaction, and the irreparable damage that rage can cause. Beyond these relevant themes, the film has a beautiful art style – as is true of basically every Miyazaki film – and a refreshingly unique setting for its postapocalyptic world. All told, Nausicaa fits the bill as the first of many Ghibli films on the list of Greatest Movies of All Time.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Like most Miyazaki films, there is little to critique with Nausicaa. Mostly, it is important to approach this film without a purely Western storytelling mindset. The end of the story is reminiscent of many other Japanese stories (anime, manga, films, etc.) in that it resolves the immediate story while leaving the resolution of other plot points more open-ended. There are unresolved threads that are somewhat finished off in the animation that plays during the film’s end credits but not as fully as in many U.S. films, which works for Nausicaa but might not for audiences that are less familiar with Japanese film and television.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
The resonance of this film’s themes and the way they are explored makes it worth revisiting again and again. The fact that we remain faced with threats of global war and arms races and the use of nuclear weapons still today, more than thirty years removed from the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union speaks to the continued need for films like Nausicaa, which present these issues relatably and in a format that can be consumed by all audiences, not just adults. Informing young people about these issues is just as important as being informed as an adult. The film also deals with issues of pollution and humanity’s place in the environment in a way that challenges how we approach environmentalism and our desire to fix the flaws of the world, emphasizing nature’s own ability to regulate and the way that humanity can both negatively and positively impact it.
Postapocalyptic settings are rarely beautiful, but in Nausicaa, the world remains beautiful, if a bit twisted after its decimation. The setting of this film features a “toxic jungle”, which is overrun by aggressive, oversized insects and a group of seemingly invincible insectoids known as the Ohm/Ohmu. This setting provides the eeriness and unease that you want from a postapocalyptic setting while also showing the beauty of nature in all of its untamed glory. The Ohm are an inevitable force that represent the unconquerable nature of nature, contributing to the film’s themes of nature and nature’s destructive ability matching that of humanity. Even in Nausicaa’s home, the Valley of the Wind, the reality of human life after apocalyptic destruction from a global war is beautiful. Humanity’s creative and constructive capabilities are celebrated even as our destructive nature is consistently condemned. Threats of war remain, and the military forces are well-flavored, exhibiting a mixture of medieval and 1900s military paraphernalia in another display of Miyazaki’s artistic and creative skill.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind succeeds as a film thanks to its resonant and well-communicated theming and its beautiful art style that is played out in its unique postapocalyptic setting. For audiences willing to embrace a more Eastern style of storytelling, Nausicaa is a highly rewarding film, well-deserving of its place in the list of Greatest Films of All Time.