Save the Dome for Films Like “From Up On Poppy Hill”

The 2011 Hayao Miyazaki, beautifully hand-drawn, animated film, From Up On Poppy Hill, has made its way to the US and is now playing in theaters. Around the San Francisco bay area, From Up On Poppy Hill is playing in a few art-house theaters. This greatly reduces the chance of many people seeing this wonderful film, by a master of animation.

Several of Miyazaki’s films depict the disruption caused by modernization. In his films Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, it is the environment that is at risk of destruction, by the unchecked advancement of for profit modernization.

In From Up On Poppy Hill, it is not the environment that is at risk, but the connection with their heritage and those who came before them. unescapable imprint of the past on their lives. The film takes place in Yokohama in the 1960s, as Japan prepares to host the 1964 Olympics. When a nation hosts a world event, there also comes a wave of modernization.

The meeting of the past with the present is depicted in the two main characters, Umi and Shun, as they both had been affected by their past at very early ages, Umi lost her father in the Korean War and Shun never knew either of his biological parents.

Each struggle to hold onto their past in different ways. Every morning Umi raises sailing signal flags on a flagpole just outside of her home, with the message of “I pray for safe voyages.” It was her father, a sea captain, who taught her how to signal. Every time, he was away from home, she would raise these flags. During the Korean War, his shipping experience was used to transport supplies. After his death, she continued to raise the flags, even up to the present day.

Shun wants to save a building that has been slated to be demolished by the school board. The old building is used to house the high school’s academic clubs. Shun is a driving force behind the student’s efforts to save the building. This also becomes a bonding point between the two main characters, as they both fight to save the building.

At a point in the movie both of their pasts collide in an emotional moving scene. For an animated film, it is very successful at creating characters in which the viewer has emotional ties. There is a moment in the movie where Umi says to Shun that she raises the flags each day for her father, and her father had sent him to her. It is a very moving scene.

Outside the theater, as my family and I walked to buy our tickets, we passed a couple carrying signs that stated. “Save The Dome.” Ironically, the theater in which we saw this film was the CinéArts Theater in Pleasant Hill, CA, which is slated to be demolished and replaced with a sporting goods store. This is an iconic theater with a domed roof and known locally as simply, The Dome.

“It’s always sad to lose something iconic like the dome, but the real challenge for a lot of people to understand is that there’s no way effectively to keep that theater operating,” Councilman David Durant said. “I think it’s unfortunate, but to be candid about it, I think it’s a sacrifice we need to make for the overall benefit of the community.” ^[1]

It is also the only place in the area where this film was being shown. The next closest places would be Berkeley or San Francisco, a half an hour to an hour away. Like in many of Miyazaki movies, progress driven by profit threatens to destroy the value of our past. In this case, it is at the expense of less profitable, but more enriching films. The animated film The Croods is also playing, which is in wide distribution. There is no comparing these two films and it the rich story of this beautifully animated film of Miyazaki that will be sacrificed, in favor of the more profitable, but less intelligent films.

Even in the making of this film there was a passing of the old to the new. Hayao Miyazaki usually writes and directs his films, but for this movie, he has turned over the directing responsibilities to his eldest son, Goro Miyazaki.

This is a beautiful and touching film that should not be missed. Seeing the movie would also be a vote in of favor art films, before they completely disappear.