Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Epic Adventure of Ecological Heroism in a Visually-Stunning Post-Apocalypse

Mizayaki's Touch

The first entry in Miyazaki's directoral canon, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a wonderfully animated sci-fi classic. Set in a visually spectacular post apocalypse, Nausicaä is armed with incisive cautions against environmental catastrophre and the consequences of total war. The film is as pertinent as when it released back in 1984, admist the Cold War. Today, Nausicaä so prophetically envisions a future in which human folly and nuclear fire ravage the natural world, creating a nigh uninhabitable desert--save for the rolling green sanctuary in the Valley of the Wind.

A Worthy Princess

However, the titular Nausicaä does not easily resign herself to this bleak fate. Born 1000 years after the Seven Days of Fire--a global conflict that brought about the end of large-scale civilizations and created a vast, toxic jungle--Nausicaä challenges the deep-seated enmity between humans and the natural world. Her overflowing charm and stunning capacity for empathy make her one of Miyazaki's more human heroines, effortlessly standing out among the remnants of human civilization, who are too busy warring with each other in ramshackle, dieselpunk airships in displays of old world prowess.

Nausicaä is right at home far away from these savage elements, deftly exploring the toxic jungle with her trusty glider. Beneath its vast, blue-green canopy, Nausicaä immerses herself in a beautifully drawn world of plants, spores and insects, blown up to fantastical scale. There's a stark beauty to the deadly flora of the jungle and its chittering inhabitants. It's as though the jungle itself resits the death-centric human world, its bleak allure an act of rebellion, which Nausicaä herself delights in.

Viewers can easily imagine a more distressing image of the post apocalypse, but Mizayaki shows through the jungle a beautiful, recovering world in the absence of human influence. Save for Nausicaä, it is humans that the film casts in such dark shades, and how telling that their violence--their ugliness--clashes against the jungle's vibrancy.

Moreover, the film so eloquently humbles an environmentally destructive humanity, placing Nausicaä as the oft-lonesome savior, hellbent on saving the jungle from humans, and protecting what is left of humanity from the vengeful majesty sleeping beneath the ground.

Verdict

Nausicaä is a triumphant film, frequently ranked among the best animated films in Japan. Released during the golden age of anime, the film is frequently cited as one of the best, and most influential animated films to come out of Japan, and for good reason. So gorgeously animated, one forgets these frames are now almost 40 years old. This ultra minamlist, but deeply expressive style of animation would come to define Studio Ghibli's works. Though among their first, Nausicaä secures an enduring legacy with its environmentalist, anti-war messages. Themes which Miyazaki would revisit--and further perfect--13 years later, in Princess Mononoke (1994).