by Stuart From up on Poppy Hill is an animated film released in 2011 by Studio Ghibli. Set in 1963 Yokohama Japan, the film tells the story of the high-school life of Umi Matsuzaki after the great world wars. At a very young age, Umi loses her father, a sailor killed in the Korean War. And since Umi’s mother is pursuing a degree in the USA, Umi is sent to live with her grandmother and helps to manage her boarding house. A large part of the film deals with Umi’s endeavor to keep intact in her mind the images of her family. This endeavor is manifested not only in her management of the boarding house but also in her participation in renovating the tattered school club center, Quartier Latin. In fact, the renovation of Quartier Latin constitutes another major theme in the film. By joining this plot with Umi’s endeavor, the film deepens the meaning behind the preservation of old buildings on the threshold of a new age Umi grows up with the habit of raising signal flags every morning. During her childhood years, she has been told that as long as she raises the flags, her father will be able to find his way home. Since then, she has kept this habit and continues to keep it even after her father’s death. This is how Umi enables her father to survive in her heart after his accident. By giving out signals for him to come home, she simply opens up opportunities for his return—if not in the real world then at least in her fantasy.
One day Umi finds that someone has responded to her flags: Shun Kazama, the adopted son of a tugboat sailor and one of her schoolmates. Every morning on his way to school, Shun sees Umi’s flags from his father’s tugboat and wonders what she is doing. Upon finding her signals answered, Umi begins to project the idea of her father onto Shun. An intuition thus grows in her that Shun has been sent by her father as a surrogate to accompany her. At school, Shun is in charge of the student newspaper. As the film develops, Umi also joins the journalism club and helps make plates for Shun. The more she dedicates herself to the newspaper, the more her father’s image becomes enriched by the actual details of the strength and patience Shun invests, for example, in manual printing. As the two fall in love, a controversy occurs at school concerning whether to keep the shabby club center, Quartier Latin. Some students argue that with the passing of the world wars, old buildings should be torn down so that a new society can be established. Other students, including Shun, argue that tearing down old buildings is no different from obliterating past memories, and that the future is unattainable should one be unwilling to respect the past. To support Shun, Umi comes up with the idea of renovating Quartier Latin. She suggests that by renewing the façade they may persuade others to see its underlying value. If, as Shun contends in the film, old buildings are closely bound up with past memories, what on earth do these memories consist of? By getting Umi involved in the preservation campaign of Quarter Latin, the film attempts to explore the nature of these memories at a personal level. For Umi, these memories are not big events but the figure of her father in her fantasy. Her father’s presence underlies her engagement in the student newspaper. She casts out her fantasized father to have it realized in her cooperation with Shun. And Quarter Latin, as the club center, nurtures such a process. Also, by renovating the building with other students, Umi actualizes the security of home associated with her father’s figure. In short, Quarter Latin contains Umi’s attempt to bring her fantasized father into reality. Being able to actualize her idea of a father, Umi can now have it enriched by the sight and feel of Shun’s attentiveness, as well as the warmth of other students’ enthusiasm in renovating the building. These details add weight to Umi’s idea of a father, making it concrete enough to serve as a brake on the loss she has to make do with, having been separated from her parents since so young an age. a
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May 2024
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