Ani-Me #36: THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA and the Anguish of Existing (Patreon)

I feel like a withered husk.

That’s because I have watched The Tale of Princess Kaguya and thus have now seen all the later films of Isao Takahata. And I am hard pressed to think of a filmmaker who is this good at just… destroying me. But it’s never like some surprise bomb of sadness that’s done through dramatic cruelty. There is no gotcha tactics or malice here. There’s even a great sense of innocence. But he has this way of making the plain-faced, existentially sad nature of his work crawl up inside you. It latches on, coiling and curling. And as the story progresses, you slowly start feeling separated. And eventually… you come undone.

How does he achieve this? It doesn’t take any great cunning, nor daring convention, nor mind-blowing insight. Mostly it comes from understanding the innate preciousness of life. Few films exemplify this better than his signature work, Grave of the Fireflies. It captures the innate horror of “life during wartime” in WW2 Japan and then… well, it dramatizes one of the saddest things imaginable. But it does so with this matter of fact sobriety that few other filmmakers would ever dare. But even Takahata’s follow-up, Only Yesterday, which is a film bursting with relative joy, understands the quiet sadness that comes with nostalgia. It’s not about what’s lost, but fighting for an adulthood that makes your fifth grade self feel more proud. Though there’s a crucial weariness to all of it. Which is why only he could make something like Pom Poko, a fun adventure story about Japanese raccoons and their magical testicles and turn it into a parable about the horrors of eco devastation and the sublimation of self to the great urban sprawl. Even My Neighbors The Yamadas, which mostly serves up some joyful comic vignettes of modern day living, had this quiet way of undoing me all the same. If only because it was a comparison of a life that went in another, much more troubling direction. Again, the preciousness of life itself hangs within all these films. Nothing ever feels safe. Nothing ever feels certain. It can all be snuffed out in an instant, leaving us with the wisp of smoke…

And it is The Tale of Princess Kaguya that somehow evokes this notion best.

Besides being one of the most beautifully animated things I've probably ever seen, I admit I was unfamiliar with the original folktale, but to go to wikipedia: “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a monogatari (fictional prose narrative) containing elements of Japanese folklore. Written by an unknown author in the late 9th or early 10th century during the Heian period, it is considered the oldest surviving work in the monogatari form.” From what I read, much of the original story seems to focus on the fable-like lessons of the five suitors’ bragging and boasting, along with the Emperor’s longing, if poetic fixation on that which he cannot have. But, of course, Takahata takes the framework of this story and reframes it to focus on Kaguya herself. Not just in terms of giving her larger action and agency, but all of it gets told through her interiority and emotional growth, all while telling a larger story of the conflicts of want and happiness.

At the onset, Kaguya arrives before her father as a gift, a tiny baby and spirit-being unfolding out of glowing bamboo. And early on, they treat her as a gift accordingly. These inspirational scenes hit so hard because you can sense the innate joy that she’s brought into their lives. She is their “princess” and the movie feels in awe of her. But, like the plant itself, she’s always growing in magic-like fashion. Hence the nickname Lil’ Bamboo. But it’s all just symbolic of how fast time moves, especially at that age. But you can feel the gutting nature of it immediately, too. Barely a word is set, but you understand the implication of this magical growth hits on the devastating truth of how fast this will all be over. Just like M. Night Shyamalan’s “the beach that makes you old,” the dread creeps into all of it. Further complicating matters is another “gift” that comes after, where the father discovers gold and fine clothes, assuming this is the world’s way of telling him that the young Lil’ Bamboo must go to the capital to be a proper princess. And that would be the life she deserves.

… or at least what they think she deserves.

Which brings us to age-old conflict of what society tells us will make us “happy” versus what actually does. Takahata wields the conflict between them like a dagger, always striking with emotional precision. At first the lessons of propriety and turning Kaguya into a fine lady devolve into fun and games with her teacher. But immediately Kaguya longs for home, her childhood friends and love, but realizes the woods have been stripped and they’ve moved on. There is no going back. At least not right now. And then there is her loving father, joyous all the same, but tripped up in the games of his own wants and aspirations for her. And he seems to be enjoying life far away from the farm in question. Thus, we see the way it all gets mixed up. All the times he’s wanting her to behave, getting it, and realizing it's killing her spirit. But like Jules et Jim, everyone is going through the motions of some bourgeoisie dream. All building to that crushing moment of her giving up and actually putting on the make-up and OOF the eyebrow plucking. It’s all part of the metaphor of her losing her childlike dreams.

The adult world holds no solace. And the answers do not matter to her. To wit, I love how much the story with suitors (which seem like a lot of focus of the original folktale) doesn’t matter as much in Takahata’s version. They mostly serve as comic beats to show the stunning gap of what poetic promises of love come up short. But the final moment the young lord foolishly dies in his pursuit with a broken back? She’s crushed by her own flippancy, along with the entire situation for even existing. This was all so achingly real and it’s about to get worse. But I love the way the story with the Emperor is similarly de-focused from his perspective. It’s all about Kaguya. And I have that cutting line sticking in my head as she tells her father, “If your happiness depends on a courtier’s cap, I will go to him… And then kill myself.” It shows just how far her father has taken things and he finally seems to understand. But it’s too late and the majesty cannot be denied. He comes to her and you’re prepared for games of wooing, but instead, he just literally tries to grab her, which is a haunting and accurate symbolic gesture of how people in power use that power so nakedly. And in the moment of defense, she resorts self-de-actualization. A kind of literal ghosting, one which evokes the deeper sense to throw the anguish of existence to the wind - to unalive oneself… but that triggers the deeper understanding of what she really came from: the moon, or heaven, or whatever you might call it. And now, it’s calling for her return… the only way out is through.

Gahhhh, it comes back to the preciousness of life. Like the younger sister plot in Fireflies, life is so achingly fragile. It’s gone in wisps. It’s so short. And here, the angst of Kaguya’s choices hits double because she realizes how much time they wasted. How much time she spent waiting, alternating between the motions of a life set out before her and the one she wanted all the while. In a fit of desperation, she runs to the home of her youth and almost finally follows into a dream with her love who has returned (himself, already a father, and seemingly ready to ditch, too) but the moon shines brightly. It’s going to happen. Not yet she pleads. Not yet. Not yet. And yet, there’s no escape. Even as she’s surrounded by things that march on anyway. Banquets. Marriage. Money. Wood chopping. All the things echoed in the oft-repeated nursery rhyme.

“Birds, bugs, beasts, grass, trees, flowers

Bring spring and summer, fall and winter

Bring spring and summer, fall and winter

Round, round, go round, Waterwheel, go round

Go round, and call Mr. Sun

Go round, and call Mr. Sun”

But fittingly, it turns out it was that same song that drew her to earth in the first place. Thus we realize that she as the moon spirit watched this pale blue dot in aching wonder… What is this thing called existence? What joy can come from such a song? Kaguya only discovers that life is but a brief thing. A sprouting time of joy followed by a wasted adulthood. One full of ceremony, and motions to be gone through and emotions repressed. All followed by a death all too soon. No. Not yet. Please just not yet. There was so much to be done. But still it comes. A tearful goodbye with her parents. An apology. A eulogy as we return to the light above. Where a robe drapes over us and our entire life becomes nothing but a distant memory. We return to be a ghost of the moon. Like a star-child, a clear homage from Takahata to a space odyssey taken long before, but here it feels like something so much more devastating, painful, and real. Still, as a moon child we gaze back at the planet because the song still sings. The waterwheel. We hear it. Oh praise be, to want that most lovely, innocent, and wasted of things…

To so desperately want the anguish of being alive.

<3HULK