Miyazaki Madness, Part 13: "From Up on Poppy Hill" is a marriage of past and future

Miyazaki the Elder meets Miyazaki the Younger

On Thursdays, I’m publishing reviews of classic movies, including pieces that have never appeared online before taken from my book 200 Reviews, available now in Paperback or on Kindle (which you should really consider buying, because it’s an awesome collection!). In this series, we are examining the filmography of my all-time favorite movie director - and newly minted two-time Oscar winner with his win for The Boy and the Heron - Hayao Miyazaki! We will be looking at all of his theatrical feature films along with the movies he wrote but did not direct, for a total of 15 weeks of Miyazaki Madness! The series continues today with 2011’s From Up on Poppy Hill, written by Hayao Miyazaki but directed by his son Gorō. Enjoy…

From Up On Poppy Hill

2011, Dir. Gorō Miyazaki

Originally published April 11^th, 2013 for the Fade to Lack blog

Gorō Miyazaki’s From Up On Poppy Hill strikes me as a very important film for Studio Ghibli. The famed Japanese animation house is not yet a crossroads, but it will be one day, for founding filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata are both over 70 years old, and will not live forever. It is a sad notion to consider, but one the film itself invites us to ponder, for in his second directorial feature, Gorō Miyazaki works alongside his father, the elder Miyazaki performing script duty, to deliver a story about the passage of time, the importance of the past, and the possibilities of the future.