I had thought that I had written something about some long time ago, but I guess I haven’t. (Although I must admit, I don’t really feel like digging through my entire blog archive.) I admit, I haven’t watched “Nausicaa” in a while, but I think my favorite Miyazaki movie is “Spirited Away”.

OK, I admit, I haven’t exactly gone through Miyazaki’s entire corpus, but any movie that brings me to tears is good shit in my estimation.

I’m not sure what it is about this movie. Maybe it’s the way it skewers the post-modern age. The background set for the whole thing is essentially a ruined amusement park. Think of Disneyland being abandoned and left for the grass to grow all over it. There is something ironically bittersweet about this. For me, especially, considering my rather unhealthy obsession with all-things Disney. From the age of 3 until I was 21 years old, I went to Disneyland at least once a year, and maybe more. But this is a whole ‘nother excursus.

Then there is the character of Haku, who is basically a river spirit whose river has been paved over, with apartments being built over it, a fate worse than even the concretization of the Los Angeles River. (Someday I will post my somber photos of the beautiful bridges that cross the Los Angeles River. Maybe.) …. Man, after a few glasses of wine, I’m in a freely-associative state. From what I understand, before the Spanish and the Arabs came, my ancestors’ religion was animism, the idea that nature is infused with the supernatural. The idea of a river spirit would probably come quite naturally to them. Seriously, though, I wonder what the Los Angeles River thinks of its completely concrete state.

One of the more bittersweet scenes, for which there is not much more exposition of, is the train scene. Again, the whole motif of a ruined Disneyland is brought to the fore. All the train tracks are actually underwater, as if there were an accidental flood. But I wonder where all those shadow people are going? Who are they meant to represent, if anyone? I suppose Miyazaki purposefully left it ambiguous, allowing one to project. For example, my thoughts immediately stray to the people-of-color who keep the ersatz world of the Disney Corporation sparkling, without whom Orange County would sink into a morass of disorder and filth. It’s interesting that Miyazaki made his featureless people shadowy instead of ghostly-white. I think that’s what my mind picks up on and amplifies.

(Before anyone accuses me of complete insanity, the reason I’m writing about this is because the Cartoon Network showed “Spirited Away” tonight.)

Maybe the other thing that it taps into is the part of my life I was in when I first watched this movie. My brother and my sister had actually come out from California to visit me in Chicago, and we went to watch it at the Landmark Theaters on Clark and Diversey. (And, wow, I am inexplicably suddenly home-sick for Chicago. OK, not home-sick, but I still haven’t figured out the word for longing for a place that isn’t home, except that the longing is the same kind of longing as homesickeness. Anyway.) Going back even more years than that, me and my siblings discovered anime about the same time (first Sailor Moon, then Ranma, then Tenchi Muyo, then god-knows-what), and I guess anime saved me from a dark part of my life, when I was getting over my break-up with my first girlfriend, after she cheated on me by sleeping with someone.

Anyway, the point is, when I watched the movie tonight, I cried. True, I was on my third glass of wine, but still, weeping is weeping. The part that really got me is when Chihiro realized why she remembers Haku—it’s because when she was a little kid, she fell into the Kohaku River (that is, the river that got paved over, with apartments built on top of it) and she was saved by the spirit in the river, which is, of course, Haku, and that part really made go all teary-eyed.

Man, I’m such a pussy.

Anyway.

As for that excursus regarding Disneyland: After a while, the Disney Corporation simply just started creeping me out. I suppose it was in college when I came to a growing awareness at the perfidy of corporate culture, and how committees screw up creative design. (Nevermind the fact that at this time, Disney was coming out with really shitty movies, and I was embroiled in dealing with PCN (Pilipino Culture Night) which is all about creativity being trampled by committees, but that is another story entirely which I have no energy at all to write about.) Anyway, by my senior year in college, I actually ended up writing a history paper deconstructing Disneyland as a paen to American Imperialism. (Ironic, isn’t it, that right now we are embroiled in the most screwed up Imperial misadventure of all time, completely ignoring the lessons learned from Vietnam and the U.S. colonization of the Philippines.) I could never really get into Disneyland the same way, nevermind the fact that the admission price was already over $50. (I am forced to recall a Damon Wayans comedy skit—”$32.50, what, is Snow White gonna suck my dick? For $32.50, I’ll fuck one of them dwarves. Dopey is gonna be sleep and grumpy tonight!” Sorry, all I can say is I’m drunk.) I remember the last time I went to Disneyland, and it was truly an alien experience. They have since built on top of the parking lot, with such curious atrocities as the California Adventure and Downtown Disney. The exits off the freeway and even the freeway itself have completely mutated from what I remember from my younger years.

I guess it’s a lesson in growing old.

I’ve got to tell you (like you don’t know) that getting older just plain old sucks.