Forum - View topicBuried Treasure - Ocean Waves
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Quotation of Dream
Posts: 1 |
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A lovely appreciation of a gentle, underrated treasure Justin. Thank you.
I bridle a little, however, at your dismissal of the Ghibli film about the "Japanese Venice" lattice of canals so beautifully and calmly filmed in "Yanagawa Horiwari Monogatari". My wife and I used to watch five minutes of this (rather long) documentary at a time, to soothe ourselves before sleep, over about one month. It worked a treat! Seriously, YHM was a sensitive Ghibli labour of love which deserves better than the timeworn dismissal "boring". Like so many Japanese artifacts, just give it time to work its magic and the rewards will be there. It's worthy its place in the canon. |
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21stcenturydigitalboy
 Posts: 103 Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia |
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I know I'm late, but I just watched this having skimmed the article, and it is easily one of my alltime favorite anime movies and possibly my favorite Ghibli film. I simply can't fault it in any way - totally engrossing, entertaining, and fulfilling.
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Hazumu-san
 Posts: 76 Location: Michigan |
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After reading Justin's column, I went and checked it out online. The price is reasonable and I will definitely get it when I can. I will just have to get a good regionless DVD player.
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bravetailor
Posts: 817 |
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Dragging this up again, I just wanted to make a few comments.
Having seen a number of current live action Japanese films of late, both of the "arthouse" variety and mainstream, I wouldn't necessarily put Ocean Waves as being a combination of "arthouse" and anime. It's leisurely, but it doesn't have the stoic disposition most arthouse fare tend to display. In many ways, it's closer to the naturalistic fare of Yoji Yamada of the 60s, with the gentle, bemused tone of late Ozu (although it's less rigorous and less subtle than even your average Ozu film.) Ocean Waves is actually much closer in feel to Mochizuki's previous film, KOR: I Want to Return to That Day and is actually less "artsy" in feel compared to the latter film. (Keep in mind the KOR movie is VASTLY different in feel to KOR the TV series so you can't really compare the series with the movie outside of the characterizations) It's a fascinating movie compared to Ghibli's usual output but I can see many people being disappointed in it when they finally get around to watching it. It isn't the be-all and end-all of high school drama. There isn't a particularly exacting degree of psychological analysis in here. I, however, was pleasantly surprised by OW all the same. Even though it was a made-for-TV movie, it's very obvious to me that this film could play in a theatre without losing a step. There's a great sense of compositional depth and spatial awareness in Ocean Waves that you just don't find in most TV anime. The dialogue dodges almost all the familiar notes of high school anime and these characters actually act like they're young adults rather than overgrown preteens. It is most definitely a "real" film through and through. |
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RedTail
 Posts: 176 |
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Optimum apparently released this a couple weeks ago on R2 DVD:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ocean-Waves-DVD-Tomomi-Mochizuki/dp/B002BC9YHA/ref=pd_mw_d_h__1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd Give it a couple months, and I'm sure the price will drop to around $10 like their other Ghibli movies. |
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KayJay123
 Posts: 11 Location: California |
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Does Rikako remind anyone else of Scarlett O'Hara?
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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I thought this thread smelled a bit musty.
 Yeah the UK has had this released for a few months now. Ocean waves has to be the second most realistic slice of life movie I've seen from Studio Ghibli. Only Yesterday being the first. spoiler[ Rikako is acting like most adolescent teenagers could act when facing the breakup of their family and having to move far away with one of them. Am I the only one who noticed that time had passed by a few years when he meets up with her at the station in the end? ] As for KOR, spoiler[I don't hold that it cornered the market for face slappings because of misunderstandings, nor was there a love triangle in Ocean Waves] and because of that there's no comparison to me. Apples and oranges.
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gwern
 Posts: 67 |
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I agree; _Umi_'s signature mood and theme is regret, somewhat like _Only Yesterday_ but less rural. If Taku and Rikako had met and Rikako had realized how she blew her high school years and the wasted possibilities, that would have been the thematically fitting end. Going for the re-union end makes it more like a feel-good movie ('you can always make up for lost time!'). (Rikako's sins are legion: pushing away *both* boys who liked her, the one who did her favor after favor and the one objectively a catch; treating her only friend as a tool and brutally riding roughshod over her deep distress; and driving away every potential friend, making no memories worth having; picking the wrong parent and then stabbing her mother in the back by transferring to Tokyo - the list just goes on! I can understand why people compare it to _Kimagure Orange Road_ - it is very similar to the movie - but honestly, Madoka is much more sensible and less self-destructive than Rikako.)
Er... what? Did we watch the same movie? Did you miss the entire love triangle between the girl and 2 boys? How they say at the end the protagonist held back even though he liked Rikako too? |
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