Watershed announces Studio Ghibli summer

Tired of frantic Hollywood animation? Crave something a little gentler and more painterly? Then you’ll be delighted to learn that the Watershed has programmed a Studio Ghibli summer, with matinee screenings of five of the great Japanese animation studio’s classics running from July 29 until September 1. These aren’t the usual obvious selections (no Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle this time), but a carefully chosen collection underlining the breadth of Ghibli’s work.

The season kicks off with 1988’s Grave of the Fireflies (July 29-August 4), which wasn’t shown in UK cinemas on initial release but has since been repeatedly cited – unusually for an animation –  as one of the all-time great war movies. Based on a semi-autobiographical short story, the film follows two young siblings as they struggle to survive in the dying days of WWII. This was initially marketed as a family film, but blubbing audiences soon discovered that it is actually a harrowing tragedy. Indeed, Empire magazine once placed it at number six in its list of Top 10 Depressing Movies. That makes it officially even more depressing than Bergman’s Winter Light.

Next up is a completely different WWII story in the form of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-nominated final and most personal film, The Wind Rises (August 5-11). A fictionalised biography of Japanese fighter plane designer Jiro Horikoshi, the animation charts key events that influenced the course of his life – the Kanto earthquake of 1923, the great depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan’s plunge into war. It’s exquisitely beautiful but was not without controversy, not least because it doesn’t find room to mention that Horikoshi’s Zero fighter jets were used for kamikaze missions.

Arietty director Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Joan G. Robinson’s young adult novel When Marnie Was There (August 12-18) is an enchanting fable with Hailee Steinfeld as the voice of introverted, artistic Anna. Recuperating from an illness, she’s sent to live in a picturesque seaside town with her aunt and uncle, where she becomes drawn to a dilapidated manor house surrounded by marshes. Here she meets a young blonde girl named Marnie (Kiernan Shipka), with whom she has much in common. Each time Anna returns, the apparently deserted house magically fills with life, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

Eight years in the making, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Aug 19-24) is another Oscar-nominated Ghibli production. Based on the 10th century folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, this one has the late James Caan as the voice of an elderly bamboo cutter who finds a tiny girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) in a shoot and raises her as his own. Her suitors are challenged to prove their love by performing a series of near-impossible tasks.

Finally, The Red Turtle (August 26-28) is a superb, dialogue-free, hand-drawn animation from first-time feature director Michael Dudok de Wit. It’s the story of the battle for survival of a man who finds himself washed up on a desert island. You really couldn’t get any further from Minions territory with what Variety described as ” . . . a fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years, like a brilliant shard of sea glass rendered smooth an elegant through generations of retelling.”

Go here for screening times and ticket details.

Main image: The Wind Rises. StudioCanal.