Valley of the Wind (風之谷)

This is another Miyazaki Cartoon Film on ATV screen this week. The story is quite complicated, but it conveys the ideas of ecology and pollution.

Here are the extracts from Wikipedia:







The story takes place 1,000 years after the "Seven Days of Fire", an event which destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth's original ecosystem. Scattered human settlements survive, isolated from one another by the Sea of Decay (腐海). Literally translating as the Rotting Sea, Sea of Fungus, Sea of Corruption or Toxic jungle, the Sea of Decay is a jungle of giant plants and fungi swarming with giant insects, which seem to come together only to wage war. Everything in the Sea of Decay, including the air, is lethally toxic.







The main protagonist, Nausicaä, is a charismatic young princess of the peaceful Valley of the Wind. Besides a skillful fighter, Miyazaki's Nausicaä is humane and Peace-loving. She has an unusual gift for communicating with the giant insects (particularly with the Ohmu, the gigantic, armored, caterpillar- or isopod-like insects who are the most intelligent creatures in the Sea of Decay). She is also noted for her empathy toward animals, humans, and other beings. An intelligent girl, and inspired by the mentor figure Yupa, a wandering samurai type possessed of great wisdom, Nausicaä frequently explores the Sea of Decay and conducts scientific experiments in an attempt to define the true nature and origins of the toxic world in which she lives. Her explorations are facilitated by her skill at "windriding"; flying with an advanced jet assisted glider craft. Yupa is searching for the mythological man in blue who, according to the legend, will appear surrounded by a sea of gold and reunite the people and nature.















One day, an airship crashes onto the cliffs near the Valley of the Wind. Nausicaä tries to rescue a hand-cuffed girl of her age from the burning wreck, but she dies after revealing that she is Princess Lastelle from the kingdom Pejite and that the cargo of the airship must be destroyed. The airship is from Tolmekia and the cargo turns out to be a kyoshinhei embryo, (Giant Warrior), one of the lethal, giant, biological weapons used in the ancient war.















It is later revealed that the Warrior embryo was unearthed by Pejite, but it was stolen by the more powerful state of Tolmekia (Torumekia in the manga). While transporting the Warrior back to their realm, the Tolmekians were attacked by insects and later crash-land in the Valley. The next day, the Tolmekians, under the leadership of princess Kushana, invade the Valley to kill the Valley king and to secure and revive the Warrior. Kushana explains that the God Warrior will be used to burn the Sea of Decay, although Obaba, an elder Valley woman who is blind, warns that attempting so will only anger the Ohmu and lead to more deaths.















Kushana attempts to return to Tolmekia, with Nausicaä and several others as hostages. Before their departure, Nausicaä reveals to Yupa a hidden garden of jungle plants, that are not toxic because they are growing in sand and water from a deep well. Nausicaä explains that the jungle is only toxic due to the toxic soil that is everywhere on the surface of the earth. The airships are attacked by a Pejitan gunship and several of the ships are forced to make an emergency landing in the Sea of Decay. There, Nausicaä communicates with several ohmus and discovers that the pilot of the Pejitan gunship is still alive. With the help of her glider, Nausicaä rescues the pilot from a swarm of enraged insects. However, the planes crash and end up in a strange, non-toxic world that is below the Sea of Decay; the plants in the Sea of Decay purify the polluted soil, and in this way produce clean water and sand, which remains hidden in this underground world. The pilot turns out to be Asbel of Pejite, the twin brother of princess Lastelle.








Nausicaä and Asbel return to Pejite, which is devastated after the Pejite people lured the insects from the Sea of Decay into their town in order to kill the occupying Tolmekian forces. The Pejite people reveal that they will do the same thing to the Valley of the Winds to recapture the Warrior. To prevent Nausicaä from alerting the Tolmekians, they capture her, but she escapes with the help of Asbel and his mother. With a gunship, she returns to the Valley, but along the way they encounter an enormous herd of enraged Ohmus who are on their way towards an injured baby Ohmu, which is used by the Pejite people to lure the Ohmus to the Valley. Nausicaä releases the baby Ohmu and gains its trust.








Meanwhile, the Tolmekians attempt to stop the herd with their armored vehicles but fails, later Kushana arrives with the God Warrior to stop the Ohmu herd, but the Warrior, awaken too early, dies in the process. However, Nausicaä and the baby ohmu are finally able to stop the Ohmu herd, but she is killed in the process. In front of the Valley people and the Tolmekian forces, the Ohmus use their gold-colored tentacles to revive Nausicaä, whose dress has turned blue by the baby Ohmu's blood; thus Nausicaä turns out to be the mythological "man" in blue mentioned in the beginning. The film ends with fragments of a future where people and insects live in peace with each other.

The story holds deeper meaning than its depiction of war; there are both humanistic and ecological subtexts in Miyazaki's narrative. Even the insects seem to be working toward some secret harmony and the lethal fungal forest seems to have a vital role in Earth's new ecosystem.