Reviews of World: Journey of My Memory (1998) and related work
- Document: “The Sky That Saint-Exupéry Flew Through” (1998)
World: Journey of My Memory (1998
)
Miyazaki Hayao (cast), Takahata Isao (cast).
Seen in 2017.
In the first program, Takahata visits Canada to see Prince Edward Island again, where he did background research for Anne of Green Gables (1979). He also goes to meet the 75-year-old Frederic Back, who made “The Man Who Planted Trees” (1987), which Takahata had translated and released in Japan. They met on the first trip in the 1970s, and talk about the relationship between humankind and nature. Takahata visits a tourist village of 19th-century rural reenactors and a Haida village, the latter because Back was reminded of the Haida when he saw Pom Poko (1994). They plant an oak together in Back’s home-grown forest.
In the second program, Miyazaki visits France, Spain and Morocco to follow the flight path of the French aviator-author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose name sounds pretty funny in Japanese (“santegujyuperi”).
A pair of NHK travel documentaries, each with one of the two greatest luminaries of Ghibli. It’s too marginal a release to appear on IMDb as of 2017. Miyazaki’s trip is by far the less conventional; the NHK team clearly struggled to make it watchable, since Miyazaki spends quite a lot of time flat on his stomach staring down through the crop dusting port of an Antonov An-2, just studying terrain, making no sketches and taking no photos: He wants to commit it all to memory!
moving picture non-fiction series
‣ “The Sky That Saint-Exupéry Flew Through” (1998
)
Miyazaki Hayao (writer).
Read in 2021.
Read in Turning Point.
Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) and the trip documented in World.
References here: Turning Point: 1997–2008 (2008/2014).