The Observation Deck: From Up on Poppy Hill
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Hot take: Studio Ghibli makes good movies. Of course, this is not at all a hot take (maybe among some super elitist group of critics) since Ghibli has had a long and storied of fantastic films and there is a lot to like for fans of basically any age group. In fact, I would argue it is what makes them so appealing in the first place.
Sure, the storybook fantasies of Hayao Miyazaki are a sight to behold and almost always wildly entertaining even if not particularly plot-driven. Spirited Away was a phenomenon all its own that helped open up a younger audience to the world of Japanese animation. There are, of course, others like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke that have also earned their spots in pop culture.
However, even at its most human and dramatic, Studio Ghibli is decidedly compelling. Works by Isao Takahata, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and Yoshifumi Kondo focus much more on the smaller scale of the stories they tell, though usually not without the occasional magical element as well. Today’s focus, From Up on Poppy Hill, fits pretty squarely in the latter category.
Still, while it does fit in with that tradition, From Up on Poppy Hill is…well, weird. Chances are I have said that about at least five or six other series, but you see…like… Let me explain. Spoiler warning for those who would like to go in blind.
From a Post-War Past
From Up on Poppy Hill is set in 1960s Japan, where the country is still recovering from the ills of World War Two. The main character and middle-schooler Umi lives with her extended family at their grandmother’s house along the coast, where, in the absence of both her mother and father, she is forced to help run the house. In memory of her father dying at sea during the Korean War, Umi raises a set of flags in hopes he’ll see them and maybe return one day.
Ok, so anxiety surrounding war and uncertainty amid loss…not really new territory for Ghibli, and they have done it really well in the past in other titles like Grave of the Fireflies and The Wind Rises, so what makes this film feel so…off?
Well, there are several reasons, some of which are not necessarily the film’s fault. For starters, there’s a strong sense of nationalism that runs throughout. Soon after we are introduced to Umi and her sister Sora, the movie offers up Shun, a somewhat awkward yet playful middle school boy whom Umi eventually begins having romantic feelings for. This ends up being an entirely separate problem with the movie but more on that in about 100 words or so.
Shun and many of the other boys at this school are attempting to save the building which houses many of the extracurricular activities, including the school newspaper which he and classmate Shiro run together. This is because developers that the school hired are planning on tearing it down to build a new facility. Despite the boys being genuinely passionate, a lot of the rhetoric used by these characters feels jingoistic in an unsettling way.
At one point the various clubs gather together in the auditorium for a debate, at which point Shun interrupts impromptu to emphasize the importance of “preserving our past.” One boy even goes as far as to say the country’s leaders are betraying people by working towards “progress.” Sure, it might just be one scene, but the film never takes any narrative steps to portray this attitude in a negative light. In fact, it pretty much ends with them successfully protecting the building, upholding said beliefs.
Ah, Sweet Brotherly Love
If that were the only strange part about From Up on Poppy Hill then it could be forgiven, but now for some reason, it is time to talk about incest. More specifically, the emotional arc surrounding the two main characters which feels like it’s maybe, possibly ok with incest.
Remember, like, a hundred words ago when I mentioned Shun and Umi’s budding relationship? Yeah well, that also gets weird. For what it is worth, and to pay this film a compliment before getting back to criticizing, it does a great job of characterizing their relationship. The little moments of interactions that build up throughout its surprisingly short hour-and-a-half run-time are genuinely cute and wholesome, which makes it all the more surprising that they chose the arc that they did.
While getting to know more about Shun at a house party in their family home, Umi incidentally ends up showing him a photo of her late father. However, unaware of the truth and with nothing else to go on but the exact same photo kept by his adopted parents, he assumes that the two of them are actually siblings. By the time Shun “figures out” that he and Umi are related, the two of them are very much smitten with each other. This causes both to go into an emotional spiral in which they pretend everything is ok but clearly they it is not.
Of course, this situation is really just a lack of knowledge on both of their parts. After Umi tells all of this to her mother, she decides to meet Shun’s adopted father, who tells her about the other man in their shared photo. The two lovebirds go to see this man right after successfully defending their clubhouse and find out the truth: Shun’s biological father also died at sea, and it turns out the two are actually not siblings anyway.
Despite eventually getting this information in the final minutes of the movie, there is a brief period where it seems like it unironically was going to endorse incest. Look, their relationship is a complicated emotional arc, and it is hard to imagine what going through a situation like that would do to a person, but the framing of it all is just not good.
To the Tune of the Times
As much as I would want to wrap this up by just saying “Well, at least the music is good,” it is hard to even do that. Sure, the music itself is well-composed. On top of that, it has a folksier, almost country sound that reflects the atmosphere that From Up on Poppy Hill is going for. Hell, even the bits with vocals from the characters were enjoyable.
The problem, across pretty much the entire film, is where that music is placed. Serious scenes are often made much more awkward with lighter, jovial music, and the slice-of-life moments that feel insignificant are awarded a lot of grandeur.
The biggest example comes from the end of the movie, where Shun and Umi are standing at the train station leaving downtown Tokyo. She tells Shun that, despite them being siblings (at least as far as they know), she still can’t get rid of her feelings. One might expect a scene like this to be handled with a bit more raw emotionality, but instead, they just continue to loop the same folk song from the previous scene.
If the point were to emphasize the confusion by including more light-hearted music, that would be a weird choice, but it would at least make sense from an artistic boundary perspective. However, nothing about any of the movies before that scene makes that feel intentional. It just comes across as a lack of planning or an oversight on someone’s part.
Conclusion
In truth, I wasn’t expecting to have this much to say about From Up on Poppy Hill. There are still a number of unwatched Ghibli DVDs sitting in my TV stand drawer, one of which was this film. The box art was and I had time before dinner so the disc got slotted into the ol’ PS4 and off it went. While it was not wholly bad, there were just a lot of poor decisions that are going to keep among the lower tiers of Ghibli’s discography.
59/100
Have you all seen From Up on Poppy Hill? Let me know down in the comments.
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Originally published at http://animatedobservations.com on February 3, 2024.
