Notes from The Ghibli Retrospective Part 1: Ocean Waves

Studio Ghibli's Ocean Waves (1993)

Set in a small town outside of Kyoto(I think, it was hard to keep up with the Japanese geography, which features heavily in the film's plot), Tomomi Mochizuki's Ocean Waves ("Umi ga kikoeru")  follows the developing relationship between two high school friends, Taku and Yatuka, and a mischevious and beautiful newcomer from Toyko, Rikako. Their story is set at a private high school in a small seaside town. The rhythm of adolescent life there really comes alive in the film: the slowness, the cloistered feeling, the closeness and at-times oppressiveness of going to a small school in a small town. All of these feelings are encased by the narrative device of Taku's reminiscing. The film begins and ends with him heading home for a high school reunion one year after leaving for college. This bookending serves well as an means to enhance the springtime-of-youth vibe that Waves seems to go for.

Saeko Himuro's story manages to avoid cliches or the tendancy of teen stories (at least western ones) to devolve into unrealistic adventures. Because we care about the characters, there is no need to send them to the moon or to have them crash a car. Fitting for a movie about high school, small events becomes big ones in the lives of the young protaganists. Although there is some action, the story doesn't really go anywhere. An illicit trip to Tokyo between Taku and Rikako doesn't result in sex or even a little smooching- just Taku sleeping in the bathtub of the hotel and Rikako having a rum and Coke. The films unfolds more through the characters and their relationships with each other than through external events, which figure here mostly to allow the teenagers to learn more about each other.

The retrospective at IFC was my first chance to see Ocean Waves and I was pleasently surprised. Some of the lesser-known Ghibli films, The Cat Returns for example, can seem childish and derivative, overdoing the melodrama that all of the studio's films contain on some level. Ocean Waves mostly avoids this trap through underplayed action, slow pacing, and a character-driven script. On first viewing, I enjoyed it more than the more promoted, more popular, Miyazaki-directed Ponyo. If you get a chance to see it (and I didn't in the 18 years since it's release), it's definitely worth a look.

*image from omohide.com