With the release of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron this week, it seems an appropriate time to look back to 2013 – when Miyazaki’s previous film The Wind Rises was rolling out in cinemas across the world, and director Mami Sunada helmed a documentary about its creation. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness captured Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli at a critical time. The Wind Rises was still deep in production and fellow studio director Isao Takahata was finishing off his own film The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

This is a beautifully constructed film. Rather than directly interview Miyazaki and his workmates, talking heads-style, Sunada purposefully allows the personalities and opinions to flow organically over the course of the film. We meet and observe Studio Ghibli’s harried producer Toshio Suzuki, who is handling The Wind Rises while simultaneously trying to coax Takahata to finally complete Princess Kaguya so he can release it into cinemas. We meet former Ghibli employee turned successful Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno as he’s unexpectedly coaxed back into the fold to voice the lead character of The Wind Rises. Of course we also meet Miyazaki himself, a smiling, wry, chain-smoking bundle of contradictions as he supervises work on what he claims is the final feature film of his career. He’s retired before. The documentary makes it perfectly clear he may come out of retirement again; 10 years on we now know that he does. Sunada had his number back then.

Miyazaki is a fascinating person, and The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness pulls no punches in reflecting him at his worst as well as his best. I went into the film expecting it to be of interest solely to pre-existing Ghibli enthusiasts, but it works as a remarkable character study in its own right. It is also both boldly impressive that Sunada makes no attempt to hide herself within her own film. She is not simply a narrator: she and Miyazaki speak to each other regularly, back and forth from either side of the camera. She offers opinions quite openly, and makes no vain attempt to remain objective or separate from her subject. It gives the film a very personal edge, and it works in part because we never really leave the people of Studio Ghibli. There are no real interviews here, and I was surprised to see no clips of Ghibli productions throughout the film.

Then, in one of the film’s closing scenes, Miyazaki beckons the camera over to a window. He’s minutes away from announcing his retirement to the press, but he still takes the time out to show Sunada the view over Tokyo, and asks her to imagine running across a nearby rooftop, then jumping to the next building, or flying, and how amazing it would all look. That, says Miyazaki, is why he loves animation so much. And as he talks, Sunada edits in a sudden
rush of movie clips of Miyazaki’s characters running, climbing, jumping, flying: My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle of Cagliostro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky. It’s difficult not to be overwhelmed. I found myself tearing up considerably. So much imagination. So much talent. And then retirement. Until he animates again.