Hollywood plots are boring

In the past two weeks I have watched one of the saddest movies I have ever seen:

And one of the happiest:

And I loved them both! They're both titles from my new favorite, Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation film studio.

Now, the fact that I loved two very different films—one is about two war orphans trying to survive a food shortage in Japan, the other is about a magic goldfish—got me thinking. Normally it's a rare event that I truly like a film, let alone love one. So what's different about these two?

The answer is that they tell stories in ways that I'm not used to—they tell stories in a non-Western way. After 25 years of living in the United States and Great Britain, I'm officially burned out on Western storytelling in films. Or more accurately, I'm burned out on American and British films. The predictability. The cliches—the stripper with a heart of gold, the tired old athlete who gives it one more shot, the teacher who inspires inner-city kids, the mismatched couple who hate each other at first but inevitably fall in love—yawn. The same goes for most American sitcoms: gender stereotypes followed by ethnicity stereotypes followed by sexual orientation stereotypes followed by yawn, yawn, yawn. I've seen it all before. I'm bored.

What I like about foreign films is that they tend to tell stories if not in a less formulaic way, then at least with formulas that I'm not familiar with. When I watch these Japanese animated films, I watch them having no idea what is going to happen next. Even Ponyo, which is based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," surprised me with its originality; its utterly unique take on a familiar story. The delight of being surprised, of truly not knowing what will happen next, is what enables me to sit through a film.

I guess that's why I've been finding more and more inspiration in foreign and independent films over the past couple of years. I figure that if I can learn to tell stories in an unexpected, unpredictable way, then they will be more fun to read, and more fun to write as well.

So, what do you think? What makes a story—whether it's a a book, a film, a play, or whatever—interesting for you? What keeps you reading/watching/listening?

SPIRITED AWAY by Hayao Miyazaki

Last weekend Big Chimp and I watched the coolest movie. Why bring this up on a book blog? Well, this particular film was recommended to us as an example of good storytelling by our creative writing professor a couple of years back. Of course, the same professor recommended that we study Mikhail Bakhtin's literary theories, so he doesn't have the greatest track record (I love literature, but chronotopes this and unfinalizability that, yawn).

Anyway, the film was Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. I've never really watched anime before, so I didn't quite know what to expect, but wow it was good! I'm not a huge Disney fan (aside from The Lion King and Mulan, which are awesome films), so it was refreshing to see a cartoon that didn't involve a formulaic plot peppered with gender stereotypes randomly bursting into song (Disney did handle the English dubbing and US release of Spirited Away, but they stayed true to the original version, making only a few minor adjustments for the sake of clarification for Western audiences).


The film tells the story of ten year-old Chihiro, who is upset that she has to move to a new area away from all of her friends. The movie opens with Chihiro and her parents in the car on the way to their new house. Her father misses the turn off, and they end up on a dirt road in the middle of the woods. When the family decides to explore a strange-looking tunnel, they find what appears to be an abandoned amusement park, but is actually a spirit town whose chief attraction is a bathhouse for the spirits. When her parents are imprisoned by the sinister witch, Yubaba, Chihiro must work with a motley band of spirits and humans to gain freedom for her family.


Visually, the animation is beautiful. It feels like the creators have really taken the time to make it look nice, with vibrant colors and intricate details. We watched the English dubbed version, which sounded fine, though hardcore anime fans tend to prefer the original Japanese with subtitles. The plot is wonderfully bizarre, and at points a bit unsettling (I found myself exclaiming "What the f---?!" at regular intervals, but in a good way). I wish I had an imagination like Hayao Miyazaki's. I really do.


See this film! That's all I can say. You won't be disappointed.