I was an avid Ghibli fan and eagerly bought all of the studio's films on DVD in my childhood, but Ocean Waves was the one gap in my collection. But while on the surface Ocean Waves is a film about two best friends stuck in a love triangle with a truly unlikable girl, the movie's theme of repressed teenaged angst unexpectedly becomes a fascinating ode to repressed sexuality.įor a long time, Ocean Waves eluded me. Ocean Waves is a wistful slice-of-life film so steeped in nostalgia that it may as well be shot entirely in sepia tones, with a paper-thin plot that is stretched over 72 slow-moving minutes. Why It's Essential Viewing: To be honest, the film that Studio Ghibli ended up making is far less interesting than the queer-coded film they accidentally made. But what those young Ghibli animators did manage to achieve sets Ocean Waves apart from the rest of the studio's filmography: they made Ghibli's most queer film. Ultimately, the experiment failed in the first two aspects - Ocean Waves went over budget and over schedule, airing on local television in 1993 to little fanfare.
OCEAN WAVES STUDIO GHIBLI SERIES
(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they've been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.) The Movie: Ocean Waves Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max The Pitch: In the early '90s, Studio Ghibli launched an unusual experiment: the studio gave its youngest animators, all in their twenties and thirties, a chance to make a cheap, quick film to show what they could achieve.
0 kommentar(er)
