The Tale of The Princess Kaguya - Preview
Preview by Jack Foley
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, the latest feature from acclaimed Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, following his acclaimed masterpieces Grave of The Fireflies and My Neighbours The Yamadas, is the fruit of a decades long love for Japanese Fairytale.
55 years ago, Isao Takahata, then a protégé of one the great directors of the day Tomu Uchida, contributed to plans for a grand project by Uchida to make an animated feature of the classic The Tale of The Bamboo Cutter.
Though never realised at that time, the scenarios he created for his heroine, the Princess, never left Takahata.
Later when he created ,with Hayao Miyazaki, the animated TV series Heidi, A Girl of The Alps they noted the similarities to The Princess Kaguya. Both heroines growing up in a beautiful mountain environment, from which the adults in their lives remove them in favour of life in the city, and there they both long for the lost mountain home.
“Someday we should make a Japanese Heidi,” Takahata and Miyazaki agreed after Heidi, A Girl of the Alps and now, 40 years later their long cherished ambition has come to the screen.
Synopsis
A baby is born from a bamboo plant, grows quickly into a beautiful young woman, turns away suitor after suitor, and on the night of the full moon returns there with the celestial beings who have come for her.
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is familiar to everyone in Japan and to many around the world as well. We never learn, however, why the Princess Kaguya leaves her heart here on Earth, and why she grieves so at having to return to the moon. What and who did she love here? What was her crime?
What was her punishment? The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, the latest animated offering from director Isao Takahata, is a work long in gestation that looks into the heart of its central character, and proposes a complex and believable reality for the heroine of this ancient fairytale.
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya is due for its Home Entertainment release on DVD & Double-Play on Monday, July 13, 2015.
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