"Coquelicot-zaka kara" ~ 8/10

The new Ghibli movie, and second film made by Miyazaki Hayao's son Gorô, is way better than his previous "Gedo senki".

Some things would still deserve attention, such as the drawings themselves (when you work for the prestigious Studio Ghibli, which is famous also for their magnificent watercolour backgrounds, you cannot afford a character design as bad as the Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon series...). Moreover, the animation still lacks... animation! One might expect from Studio Ghibli a few more images per second (even their short movies have better movements). And my last complaint should be about the opening scene, with the "breakfast song", which looks a little bit like one of those stupid japanese TV commercials...

Anyway, the story being set in a rather realistic 1963 Yokohama, Miyazaki Gorô gets closer to Isao Takahata's realism, than to his father's magical imagination. That might be a very good point : there's no need for another Hayao Miyazaki, but using Studio Ghibli's capacity of creation combined with historical realism and social criticism has always resulted in masterpieces ("Hotaru no haka", "Omoide poro poro", "Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko"), and following this would not be a mistake.

The description of japanese society is very interesting, and still echoes nowadays, even if it would be difficult to imagine, in this 2011 Japan flooded by tsunamis of junk-culture, young boys and girls able to create anything as great as the fairly open-minded "Quartier Latin" depicted in "Coquelicot-zaka kara".

The use of Sakamoto Kyû's song "Ue wo muite arukô" (one, if not the most famous Japanese song ever) anchors the film in reality, along with several views of Tokyo during the sixties. Anyway all this realism does not prevent the movie from remaining idealistic enough to be interesting. This is also due to the fact that real adults are all absent in one way or another, or present only through the prism of past wars, and no obstacle seems to prevent those young dreamers to pursues their ideals...

The soundtrack music is good and subtle enough not to ruin the charm of this pretty little film (too much music was the biggest mistake of Studio Ghibli's last movie...). The theme song melody makes me feel as if Joe Hisaishi was there also in the movies he didn't take part in (and I wouldn't mind this influence to be real ^^).

While some references to his father's cinema (and probably manga too), and to other Ghibli movies ("Karigurashi no Arrietty" for instance) can be noticed here and there, and Hayao Miyazaki helped him with the script, with "Coquelicot-zaka kara" Gorô Miyazaki is starting to show some real talent and personality. I just hope that by keeping up the good work at Studio Ghibli, he will one day be worthy of Miyazaki senior.