Review of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

It’s kind of astounding to realize that Naussica of the Valley of the Wind was only Hayao Miyazaki’s second directorial project. I mean, his first film was a low-key tie-in to an extremely popular franchise, and now all of a sudden he’s got his own studio, and its very first project is going to be an epic fantasy adventure based on a legendary (and stunningly beautiful) manga series? If nothing else, you really have to appreciate the balls behind that decision. One doesn’t earn the title of genius without swinging for the fences right out of the gate. And thankfully, the result was well worththe risk; Nausicaa is a bold, daring film that soars high on the wings of its adventurous spirit, one of the most breathtakingly mature films ostensibly for children that I’ve seen in a long time. The rumors of his talent have not been overstated; If Ghibli’s debut is anything to go by, I’ve got a slew of really fantastic movies ahead of me. Consider me excited as hell.

As all good epic fantasy does, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind starts by teasing at the history of its world before refocusing on one small pocket of it, crafting a grand narrative outward from the beating humanity at its core. It’s 1,000 years after the industrial world fell apart, and now humanity lives scattered in a series of kingdoms across the world that exist somewhere between the fashions of Medieval Europe and the technology of Steampunk Britain. There’s a toxic jungle of fungus and oversized insects slowly creeping across the landscape, threatening to consume the survivors, a ticking clock that seems to spell humanity’s extinction. In the Valley of the Wind, though, things remain relatively peaceful, and the titular princess Nausicaa spends her days exploring the toxic jungle, bringing supplies back to her village, learning about the jungle’s ecosystem, and just all around being the sweetest and spunkiest take on a Disney princess you can imagine. Seriously, if you airdropped Ariel, Belle, or any of the renaissance-era heroines into the wilderness with a backpack full of survival gear and told her to learn to fend for herself, Nausicaa would be the result. She’s a fantastic character, completely in tune with the harmony of nature and how delicate its balance truly is, doing her best to make life better for everyone in an increasingly dangerous and hopeless world. One look at her determined eyes, sparkling with excitement as she swoops in on her glider to guide a wayward monstrous bug back to its home, and you would follow her to the ends of the earth.

As to be expected, though, trying to make life better for everyone starts getting a hell of a lot harder when her peaceful valley is suddenly throw into chaos by an invasion from a neighboring kingdom followed by a plane crash the previous night. It seems the plane was transporting an ancient superweapon: one of the seven mechanical colossi that scorched the earth into oblivion all those centuries ago (yeah, take a second to appreciate how cool that sentence is). With its recent re-discovery, a pair of kingdoms are fighting over control of it, and the Valley of the Wind is right in the crossfire. So it’s up to Nausicaa, loathe to see anyone or anything suffer harm, to set out and convince the two kingdoms to back off and let this ancient evil die before the balance of nature is upset and humanity is made to suffer for their arrogance once again. There are battles and escapes, moments of peace and moments of dread, and lots and lots of death. Seriously, there are moments in this film that honestly chilled me with how brutally they were willing to explore the darkness and bloodshed that Nausicaa is fighting so hard to prevent. Even Nausicaa herself doesn’t escape without blood on her hands, and the moments where she’s overwhelmed with the weight of the cruelty she’s committed on her quest for peace hit so goddamn hard. This is a kid’s film that doesn’t shy away from forcing its audience to confront the hard truths behind the morals it supports. Sometimes, fighting for peace requires violence. Sometimes, you can’t save everyone in the end. But you keep that goal in sight anyway, because it will always be worth fighting for.

What’s equally impressive as this unflinching understanding of its own darkness is the admirable moral ambiguity at the story’s core. While there are clear antagonist figures, there’s no one character who’s fighting for villainy’s sake alone. The two kingdoms are both full of allies and enemies, people who genuinely believe they understand the best way of life and are fighting for the path to reach it. They make rough choices, and people suffer for them, but they’re not cruel or faceless hordes. They’re people, just like any other, people lost in a terrifying world and searching for an answer they believe to be in front of them. Nausicaa’s desire to save everyone could have so easily gotten annoying and childish if it wasn’t for the fact that all the people she’s saving very clearly deserve to be saved, even if the path they’re pursuing will only lead to darkness. The film captures humanity at a crossroads, a series of conflicting ideals at the precipice of man and nature, questions of how to live side-by-side with a world that increasingly seems prepared to reject you from its body like a parasite. It’s a question with no easy answer, so it’s no wonder so many of them fall into conflict with each other, needing Nausicaa’s clear-eyed soul to steer them away from their misguided fears and expectations.

And you come to care for everyone on every side of the conflict. Nausicaa’s elderly swashbuckling uncle figure, a downed pilot conflicted over his kingdom’s path forward, the general and second-in-command of the invading army with an amusing love/hate relationship with each other, they’re all so charming and understandable that you can’t help but want the best for all of them. If there’s any significant flaw in the film, it’s just that I wanted so much more time with all these characters. Even at a hefty (for a kid’s film) 117 minutes, I feel like I only began to scratch the surface of the richly textured community inhabiting this world. Thankfully, the voice acting makes up a lot of the difference, with stellar dub performances from everyone from Patrick Stewart to Uma Thurman to even freaking Shia LaBeouf. There’s so much warmth and nuance to their performances that it fills in so much of the detail I was missing. On that note, this is a film that excels in its details, from the insectoid design of the planes to the subtleties of the character animation to the gorgeous depictions of fungal forests, great cloudscapes, and long-lost ruins. Miyazaki’s magic touch is fully on display even this early in his career, perfectly capturing the majesty of that tentative space where technology and nature intersect, feeding into and growing upon each other in symbiosis. This is what epic fantasy is supposed to do: get you lost in a world and characters fantastically different from your own, and watch it expand as the wonder of this universe and the scope of the characters’ place in it grows too immense to be contained.

And all this fantastic worldbuilding and thematic character work comes together for the final act that left me breathless. I won’t spoil anything, because you really need to see it for yourself, but god damn. God DAMN. That’s how you end an adventure story, folks. It’s massive, it’s epic, it’s sprawling, yet it’s also quiet, small, and personal, never forgetting to come back to the princess at its core and her desire to make this a world everyone can coexist in. It’s a stunningly beautiful sequence that captures the awe and terror of chaos just as well as the beauty and warmth of hope. It’s a perfect end to a truly spectacular story. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind does everything that kid’s adventure stories should do and more, sweeping you along on majestic wings with its maturity and grace, its grandeur and intimacy. It’s not quite Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood in terms of my favorite epic fantasies, but it comes really damn close at points, and I can’t wait to see what else Miyazaki has in store for me.