Things Well Made

Craftsmanship excellence and the design of beautiful things

A thing well made: the movie ‘Ponyo’ by Hayao Miyazaki

February20

Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away. Howl’s Moving Castle. There is something tremendously beautiful about all these movies and Ponyo is no different. The way Hayao Miyazaki conveys a sense of innocence, magic, and love which is extraordinary. The music, the symphony of images and the touching storyline are intricately woven together. It completely carries me away.

But its a cartoon

Its an animation. He uses a number of devices including flat 2D sketches of extraordinary detail, and 3D animation as well. Don’t be naive enough to think that these techniques can’t deliver a powerful movie!

Lemme see!

Here’s a clip. Its for the US English version — the original Japanese with subtitles holds a little more of that faraway world magic for me and luckily I saw that version.

If you like that clip you should definitely see it, and hopefully become a Hayao Miyazaki fan like me!

Playing at a bunch of theatres in London right now; I saw it at Curzon Soho.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

posted under Movies

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I’ve always appreciated things that have had love, care and attention put into them. Where its obvious that the thing that was created was created for reasons above purely commercial gain.

Don McGlashan says it best in ‘Thing Well Made’ by the Mutton Birds:

To make a thing like that you’d need to know what you were about.
You’d have to know where you were going and go there in a straight line.
And everything else you’d have to shut right out.
Can you see the man who made that?
Can you see him putting it down and standing back?
Can you see the moment when he said “That’s it. That’s perfect.”?
At a time like that you wouldn’t care about your job,
Or your mortgage, or the fight you had with your wife.
‘Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There’s connection,
There’s completeness when a man holds a thing well made.

Watch live recording of A Thing Well Made by the Mutton Birds

This site is dedicated to this song and to all those people in the world who create Things Well Made.



 

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