Zurich is Hosting An Impressive Hayao Miyazaki Retrospective

"Porco Rosso" will screen in Switzerland as part of Filmpodium Zurich's Hayao Miyazaki retrospective. — “Porco Rosso” will screen in Switzerland as part of Filmpodium Zurich’s Hayao Miyazaki retrospective.

“A Miyazaki retrospective is a very rare thing in Switzerland,” Swiss film scholar and animator Oswald Iten told Cartoon Brew. Which is why we implore animation fans living in Europe to stop off in Switzerland to visit Filmpodium Zurich’s Hayao Miyazaki retrospective.

It may already be too late to screen the thrilling Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro and the masterful Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. But there is still time to catch fulfilling classics like Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle, as well as the less impressive Ponyo and Porco Rosso, the latter of which Miyazaki criticized in Mami Sunada’s fascinating Studio Ghibli documentary, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness.

"My Neighbor Totoro." — “My Neighbor Totoro.”

One of the subjects of that underrated documentary, Miyazaki’s feature-length antiwar swan song The Wind Rises, also screens during Filmpodium Zurich’s retrospective. Its legendary lineup also includes his son Goro Miyaaki’s From Up On Poppy Hill, Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s poignant The Secret World of Arrietty and Yoshifumi Kondo’s moving Whisper of the Heart, as they are based on Miyazaki’s screenplays or storyboards.

Iten, who wrote the dreamy profile of Miyazaki for Filmpodium Zurich’s showcase, told Cartoon Brew that the films are dubbed or subtitled in German, and that Nausicaa, Laputa, Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s, and Ponyo are presented in 35mm for cinephiles.

Although Miyazaki is a globally recognized auteur, Zurich’s retrospective is also somewhat grounded in the local, given that many of his films were influenced by the director’s visits to Europe and intensive research of European literature, from the location scouting of Miyazaki and Isao Takahata’s early collaboration Heidi to the European castle of Cagliostro and beyond.

Filmpodium Zurich retrospective’s screenings of Miyazaki and Ghibli’s memorable films are staggered, but run through early September. Does anyone have a ticket to Switzerland we can borrow?

For more information, visit the Filmpodium Zurich website.