Tales From Earthsea

Warnings: Image of Arren severing a hand, blood, discussions of slavery, and mentions of child abuse.

Despite this movie coming out in 2006, long before I was allowed to watch PG-13 movies, I had the privilege of seeing this film in theaters as part of a festival celebrating Studio Ghibli films. While I am no stranger to these filmed (e.g. My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and The Secret Life of Arrietty), this film, like a lot Studio Ghibli films is beautiful and has a calming affect that I don’t see in a lot in modern day animation.

I love the animation and the style of the movie. Every scene was gorgeous to look at and the balance between the lightness and darkness, which reflects the themes of life and death beautifully. The way the characters not only take in the surroundings they face, but also interacting with the setting. Often, we see the surroundings only being interacted with when the main conflict arises and while Hoppers did this in some capacity, the main setting of the forest was closely explored when Mabel turned into a beaver. However, with Tales from Earthsea, the world building in this movie is showcased throughout the movie and how the characters respond to the world they are in and how they have to navigate that, especially the slave caravan that is happening. When I first saw this, I was stunned but unfortunately in our history it has happened and it’s ugly to see. The topic is hard to navigate and while it can be hard to look at, this part of history was treated with grace and respect, balancing the difficulty of the subject while also showing us the hope that can come from the freedom and escape down the road. When Arren got taken and was losing hope, the single animation shot of the moon shining down on him before being rescued by Sparrowhawk. That scene spoke to so many different levels of hurt, loss, isolation/lonliness, hope, and relief. I could see the amount of effort it took to animate and portray this scene, along with the rest of the film. The animation in this film is beautiful to watch and the intricacies of the themes in this film heavily reflect in the subtle details. I almost didn’t want the film to move to the next scene because of how gorgeous every image was. The animation, in my opinion was my favorite aspect of the film.

The characters have multiple layers to them and SparrowHawk has a lot of shocking moments in his character, along with Arren and Therru. Despite loving SparrowHawk has his moments, the character dynamics I was most interested in were Arren and Therru. Therru, in particular has the most beautiful character growth in my opinion. Therru, on the surface is a silent child who was a victim of her environment and there’s a level of mystery her character that you don’t see in modern films. Often, they lead to the surprises/spoilers from the get go. However, with Therru, I was shocked to see her character transformation, specially with her transforming into a dragon when she is on the verge of death. The experience of seeing this character have her moment to shine was unexpected in a good way and I was glad to see the twist come instead of a predictable death. Her voice actress beautifully represented her character and the voice when she is singing, I got chills. The silent moment as we hear her song and the way this moment was shared as a moment where her walls were starting to break down felt authentic. Her transformation in her character development was timed perfectly, along with Arren.

Arren, on the other hand while is a mystery the layers of his character peel back and his true fears come into play. At first glance, we see him becoming closed off and almost arrogant in his stance. However, the layers start to come undone and we discover that he killed his father. Despite wishing we got to see more of an exploration on the reasoning behind killing his father, I was glad we got to see the aftermath that he experiences after the action. His own image haunts him and that’s something we rarely see in the media. The consequences of our own actions are often represented in the media as an aftermath and how society has to deal with those mistakes, however, the film centers on Arren’s personal journey and the aftermath of what he did and how he sees himself. I love this approach and hope in the upcoming films we see this year, they will develop and elevate this theme of personal responsibility. His affliction with death and dying is a relatable one. It was something that should be explored more in an authentic and humble way. At the end of the day, we all die at some point in our lives. Despite the idea being terrifying, it does happen and its inevitable. We have no control when we die, but we can choose how we live and how Arren has to come to terms with that is breathtaking. The moment where he stabs Sparrowhawk, my heart broke as we see the true regret in his eyes. The tears and shakiness in his voice broke me. I realize in this moment that he didn’t stab his dad nor Sparrowhawk as a way of malicious intent, its more of a fear and wanting to survive. As Sir Pentious says it best “humans are afraid…they’ll do anything to any man just to live.” He just wants to live and feels he has to do what he can to survive. I don’t condone this, but I can understand this and I’m glad he is able to make peace with the mistakes he’s made and can move forward and try to make amends with the people’s he hurt.

The villain is brilliant. The way this villain and the reveal of his true nature comes out of second nature was shocking,. The way she moves and her magic is effortless, along with Sparrowhawk made for some great conflict/action. Despite the design of the character looking beautiful on the outside, there’s a true wickedness that lives inside her and an element of shock when we see her true form. The death of her while we expected it came with a surprise of who killed her. From first glance, I thought it would be Sparrowhawk, it ended up being Therru, which makes sense. The transformation of the dragon is beautiful to see. The film also made the villain similar to Arren with their fears of dying and wanting to live forever. Unlike Arren, who learns that no one can live forever, Cob never learns this and instead tries to attain life as much as he can, but ultimately that is his demise and its satisfying to see, knowing how much damage he gave towards the citizens.

One aspect I wish we got to see more is the relationship between Sparrowhawk and Arren. In one moment, he tells Arren to stay close as the city is filled with slavers. However, in another moment Arren is left alone and almost captured. The inconsistencies of SparrowHawk’s relationship with Arren bothered me and took me out of the film. I wish the film took a little more time to develop this relationship because it was built as a father/son relationship but we hardly got to see that and for me it was a little disappointing to see that underdeveloped. I know at some point, Arren had to go back and face what he’d done, it still would’ve been nice to have that relationship grow over the course of the film.

Another aspect that was underdeveloped was the reasoning behind the conflict of Arren stabbing his father. While the execution of the scene is brilliant in the way we get to be in the POV of the mysterious stabbing, the reasoning felt off and they never really get any resolution to this and I wish there was one scene where some context as to the reasoning behind the action. I do like how Arren is haunted by this, there should’ve been more explanation in my opinion.

The film is a beautiful watch and while there are some elements I wish were better explored, I love the characters, animation, and themes that they address in the film and would watch this film either in the original Japanese language or the English dub with Wilem Dafoe, Mariska Hargitay, and Cheech Marin. If you love Studio Ghibli films, this is the movie for you!