WRITTEN BY: Mamoru Hosoda, Sakoto Okudera
STARRING: Colleen Clickenbeard, David Matranga, Jad Saxton, Michah Solusod, Lara Woodhall, Alison Viktorin
Recently I came across this really great YouTube channel called "Every Frame a Painting". There aren't a lot of videos there yet, but what is there does a great job in breaking down specific visual mechanics in films in a way that's easy to digest and understand. I'd recommend checking it out if you're interested in filmmaking, even just a little bit.
One video that particularly caught my eye was this one which focuses on the potential uses and drawbacks of lateral panning. Its chief example: the animated film Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda.
Having not seen this movie before, I thought I'd track it down and maybe give it a watch.
I'm certainly glad I did.
I've been a big fan of Hosoda longer before I even knew who Hosoda was. His movies really aren't that well known outside of anime fan circles, but for fans of Digimon (yes, I know you're out there) he played a big role in the creation of the original series. He even directed a couple of the Digimon movies (namely the first and second ones). Now those movies never did get a proper english release, instead they were chopped down and and shipped mangled to America as the first two thirds of what was called "The Digimon Movie". For many a budding anime fan that mangled cut was the first glimpse they had of Mr. Hosoda's work, and even in that state you can really get a sense of his unique style shining through.
After directing a spinoff film for the series One Piece and turning leaving a gig directing Howl's Moving Castle for Studio Ghibli, Hosada began working with Madhouse, one of the most respected animation houses in Japan. That start of that collaboration, along with his collaboration with screenwriter Sakoto Okudera, was the point where his work really started to shine. Films like The Girl Who Lept Through Time and Summer Wars brought him both critical acclaim as well as wider international recognition. People were hailing him as the next Miyazaki (though any reasonably talented Japanese anime feature director with pretty visuals seems to get this title). In 2012 he released Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki, his third film with Madhouse, whose name translates in English to "Wolf Children Ame and Yuki". This time he also decided to form his own studio to co-produce the film: Studio Chizu. The year after its release, Funimation released an English language dub for the film and shortened the original title to simply Wolf Children (because western audiences don't seem to share Japan's taste in overly long descriptive titles).
On paper the story sounds pretty straightforward (and maybe a little cliche at first). Hana is a beleaguered but upbeat college student living alone paycheck to paycheck. One day she meets an aloof, brooding man in one of her classes and immediately takes an interest to him. Like many an anime romance, the two fall in love, and begin seeing each other more and more. One night, the man reveals to her his true nature: that he's the last in a line of people who can transform to a wolf at will. The two live happily for a time, and eventually have two children. Their first is a daughter, Yuki, and the second a son, Ame. Their happiness is short lived, though, as one day the father leaves and is found in wolf form dead in a river. After this extended prologue, the rest of the film centers on Hana's efforts to try and raise her children on her own, but she finds that raising children who can turn into wolves presents its own sets of...unique challenges. We follow their lives over the next ten years and as time goes by we see Hana and her two children grow and change, both literally and figuratively, right in front of our eyes.
Hosoda's films always seem to be stories that center around notions of family, both the ones the characters are born with as well as the ones they make for themselves. You can see this as early as his work on Digimon. While there's always a "leader" of the group, its through the efforts of the group and the pooling of their individual talents that things get done and the day is saved. That's especially true with Summer Wars (which is basically a remake of his second Digimon movie after all). In the case of The Girl Who Lept Through Time, the main character loses a lot by being selfish and acting in her own self interest. It's a particularly Japanese thing, I think, the way they focus on community and unity. It's presented in a way that's strongly idealistic, and sometimes verges on being overly sentimental. That sentimentality, though, is often so central to what I think makes his films resonate so much with audiences. Over and over in his work he uses summer vacation as a shorthand for good times and being together with friends and family, it's something a lot of kids and young adults can relate to. The bitter-sweetness comes with the realization that summer doesn't last forever, eventually people do grow apart and go their own ways. While that motif isn't used in specifically in Wolf Children, these themes are still as present as ever. If anything, the fact that it uses the broader canvas of early childhood and motherhood to paint its story gives it a much greater capability of exploring not just the impending separation, but why that separation occurs.
I've heard a lot of people say that on a visually Hosoda's films look very similar to Studio Ghibli's, specifically those of Hayao Miyazaki. Other than the fact that both director's films look gorgeous and have highly detailed backgrounds, I don't think there's as much a similarity as people seem to think there is. For one, there's much less emphasis on character detail than there is in a Miyazaki film. Between any one scene the level of intricacy a character is drawn can shift drastically. If you look at the scene used in the video above, the characters are little more than solidly colored, almost featureless outlines. Even within the same scene the level of detail can shift and change just like the children themselves. It's almost as if staying on model is more of a suggestion to Hosoda than a strict rule. In a way I can see why some people have a problem with it, but at the same time I feel like this style of his allows the animators to really be expressive through the motion of the characters.
It's also worth noting that this movie integrates a lot of computer animation into its visual make-up (which is another thing you won't find much of in a Ghibli film). While there are the usual things its used for like animating crowds and hard to draw moving vehicles, it's most powerful use tends to be when its used for environments. All throughout the film there are moments where CG landscapes that are textured with hand-painted images. In a movie where the freedom and speed of wolves needs to be communicated for the themes and emotional core to really resonate, the usage of CG environments allows the camera to fly, dodge, and zoom into and out of the landscape, giving us a wolf's eye view of movement. One of my favorite scenes is when Hana, Ame and Yumi encounter snow for the first time, and there that effect is in full swing.
Its all so corny, but even then despite myself I can't help but smile and laugh at all these happy little moments peppered throughout the film. I think a part of that might be because Wolf Children tempers these happy moments with a real undercurrent of sadness and loneliness. As with summer, those moments are made all the happier and precious with the knowledge that they're all so transient and fleeting. Because of the unique circumstances of her children, Hana doesn't feel she can relate or interact with any one else for fear of revealing her kids' secret. Even before she's saddled with being a single mom, before she even meets her dearly beloved, it doesn't seem as though Hana has any real friends or family to speak of. For a while, her children are her one true source of happiness in her life because she already lost the first person she loved. Its only when she becomes acquainted with her neighbors in her new country home that her circle of friends begins to grow. Once Ame and Yuki are sent off to school and distance themselves from their mother, their own sense of loneliness and alienation begins to grow within them as well. All three of them start to become their own people, but at the same time that forces them to drift apart when their wants and needs don't align like they used to. It's through this that I think the movie delivers its best emotional moments. If you want to see where that leads you'll have to see the movie for yourself.
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