Harvey Milk set up a camera shop on Castro Street in the early 70’s, and the filmmakers recreated the interior exactly. 575 Castro Street still exists, now as a men’s clothing shop known as “Citizen” — though the interior wall features a mural of Milk with one of his famous quotes.

The film was also valuable in that it provided excellent context for a lot of the assorted city buildings. For example, we frequently went past the opera house while riding the bus; were it not for the film, I wouldn’t have realized the building across from that was the City Hall, where Milk was assassinated.

Jey’s sister and her husband are traveling around California this week and next, so we’re going to head over to San Francisco on Friday for our own mini-vacation and to visit with them.

In preparation, we’ve been watching films set in SF and the Bay area, starting with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

The first time I ever saw Vertigo was on a theatre screen in San Antonio, as part of a weekly classic films screening that I used to attend with my friends Francisco and Denise. It was at a theatre where they allowed alcoholic beverages, and guy in the row behind us got drunk and cackled through the entire film. Especially at parts with dramatic zoom-ins and tortured expressions. So there was definitely a narm element happening.

Less so this time around, though — I was caught up just as much as ever in the classic Hitchcock tension, and was quite pleased to recognize some of the San Francisco landmarks in the film, such as the Palace of Fine Arts (the place where I met Jey for the first time).

Gorgeous.

I also found this excellent Google Map which has a marker for every location in the film. I’d been wondering if the redwood trees they visit were in Muir Forest, but it turns out they had actually traveled to Big Basin State Park, south of the city.

Screencaps via.

Google map via.

Another habit I enjoy is following a director’s or actor’s ouvre. At home we’ve started on some Akira Kurosawa films, intending to watch them in (more or less) order. (Though as in this Slate article on keeping discs for forever, we’ve had Seven Samurai languishing at home for months. I even carried it to England and back.)

But slightly easier to digest than the the above “existential cinematic vegetables” are the works of Japanese animation Studio Ghibli.

We’re following this list of “Films and specials (Excluding short films or Ghibli Museum releases)”. So that is, in order, with ones we’ve watched so far in italics:

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Grave of the Fireflies
My Neighbor Totoro
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Only Yesterday
Porco Rosso
I Can Hear the Sea/Ocean Waves
Pom Poko
Whisper of the Heart
Princess Mononoke
My Neighbors The Yamadas
Spirited Away
Howl’s Moving Castle
Tales From Earthsea
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

So far I have been completely blown away by the films we’ve watched, and am lucky to re-watch several with new eyes.

Each Ghibli story is radically different, but they’re joined together by the same loving, creative spirit. The art is amazingly detailed, and the worlds they portray are unique but familiar, interweaving modern settings and mythology. And I love that many of Ghibli’s films deal with relationships between humans and the planet (the ones touching on harmonious, respectful co-existence often turning out to be the most profound and beautiful).

My favorites so far are Nausicaä and Totoro.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind takes place a thousand years after a war that destroyed the ecosystem of the planet, which is only just starting to heal itself. Every generation contributes its various pollutants to the atmosphere (just think of the Victorians and their coal burning! sheesh) and frets about its impact on the planet, so the film feels timely even though it was created in 1984 — the year I was born, and during the Cold War. In the film, a new war is about to break out, so there’s quite a bit of combat and fiery exploding stuff, but there’s also a truly epic plotline about the insects and toxic forest that are slowly covering the surface of the planet.

My Neighbor Totoro was a welcome balm after viewing Grave of the Fireflies, which is a beautiful but deeply haunting film about two children starving to death during war and famine in Kobe, Japan. Totoro is about two siblings who meet a giant, furry troll (it looks like a cross between a cat and a bear) who lives in the nearby forest. Early on in the film the children and their father enter the forest to visit an ancient camphor tree, to thank it and ask it to continue watching over them. Throughout the film — without getting too specific or spolier-y — they rely on the tree, forest and its inhabitants for help and guidance as they grow from children to young adults, physically and spiritually.

Like plenty of classic literature, lots of the Ghibli films feature children as a way to channel the magic of the world, a sense which fades as one grows older. (In Totoro, Granny explains to the children that she used to be able to see the house’s resident soot sprites, when she was their age.) Also given that there are strong mythological and earth-spirit elements, it makes sense that they’d use young people as vehicles:

“Animism in the widest sense, i.e. thinking of inanimate objects as animate, and treating them as if they were animate, is near-universal. Jean Piaget applied the term in child psychology in reference to an implicit understanding of the world in a child’s mind which assumes all events are the product of intention or consciousness. Piaget explains this with a cognitive inability to distinguish the external world from one’s own psyche. Developmental psychology has since established that the distinction of animate vs. inanimate things is an abstraction acquired by learning.” (via)

Totoro is also one of the most joyful films I’ve ever seen. According to Wikipedia, Totoro is as familiar to Japanese children as Winnie the Pooh is to British kids. I believe it, and I will also show it to my nearly-three-year-old nephew.

Last night’s Kiki’s Delivery Service was excellent as well. It features a young witch-in-training who leaves home at the age of 13 for a year of training in the real world. It’s about finding what you’re talented at, and then discovering what inspires that talent, and keeps you going. Inspired by Kiki, I have left this post as a long, rambling screed instead of trying to edit it down (or just cutting out parts completely), since I’m mostly just relieved I seem to have so much to say about it all.

Anyway, Ponyo is due out in American theatres on August 14, so now we have a dilemma — try to watch the remaining 10 films in 18 days and risk losing details in the rush, and not appreciating each film as a separate entity…or see Ponyo on its release, supporting the box office efforts and helping ensure the future of such films, but also ruining the order of our viewing schedule and the experience of seeing the films chronologically to witness the evolution of the studio.

(Though to be completely honest, we’ll probably see it on opening weekend AND watch when we’ve finished the others. Best of both!)