Left-click: rotate, Mouse-wheel/middle-click: zoom, Right-click: pan, Escape: close
Initial scene:
- Long shot
- Useful for creating a sense of setting, gives you the view of the whole setting
- Colour scheme is muted, gives the sense of something being sick
- One silhouette
- Empty, barren, nothing is growing, rocky, desolate
- Gives the idea that the world left is now a barren wasteland
The 2 travellers:
- Costuming
- Doesn't look human
- Costuming reinforces the barren aesthetic, i.e., gas mask
- Short sequence when we move from desolate, then give clearer sense of what happened to nature
- Nature appears lifeless, infested by something, like a fungal disease.
- Abnormal growth
- Why is it abnormal?
- Texture, spider-web like
- Spitting stuff out, purple is associated with disease, danger, e.g. poison is purple, purple mushrooms
Camera pan:
- Camera pan shows us the full devastation of the village
- Now we see how the wasteland-like atmosphere has affected the houses
- Houses overgrown, like the trees
WIND
- Since the start of the movie, we can predominantly hear the wind
- Gives an eerie sense
Little doll
- Human picks up the doll and it disintegrates
- Whatever happened was not discriminant, affected even innocent people
- Creates the uncomfortable sense that the catastrophe did not just affect a single population, but all of human kind
Close-up on insect:
- Weird tongue, scary red eyes
- Makes it seem malevolent
Tapestry:
- Tell a story of what happened to the earth
- Artistic rendering of the giant warriors
Giant warriors shot:
- Body expression dehumanises them
- Sinister eyes. Unexpressive, extra-diegetic gaze
- Uniform, further dehumanisation/ lack of individuality.
- Humanoid but distorted, uncanny.
Nausicaa with wings
- White wings of a dove, connoting peace
- White wings of an angel, connoting piety, salvation
- Portrays Nausicaa as a saviour.
Underground:
- Serene beauty of underground in contrast to the poisoned wasteland above.
Empire invades the valley of the wind (30min in)
- Symbolic meaning of the valley of the wind?
- Connection with nature.
- Good guys, like the greens party.
- Human balance between mankind and nature.
Flag:
- Sword: represents belligerence.
- Snakes: embodiment of sin, deception, etc.
- Red colour: blood? Anger, war etc.
Speech:
- Peace, but just murdered a guy.
- Power imbalance.
- Misinformation about the jungle.
Through the use of symbolism, the film represents the contemporary issue of climate change as a result of technological negligence. In the film, large metallic warships from the Tolmekian Empire aggressively attack the Valley of the Wind, smashing through a windmill. This emotionless destruction of the windmill symbolises the Tolmekian's strength and dominance over the Valley of the Wind, and their ideals of human connection with nature. Furthermore, the extensive symbolism of metal within the Tolmekian ranks highlights a lack of sympathy and attention to nature. This dehumanises the Tolmekians, presenting their relationship with metal and by extension technology as detrimental to nature. Thus, by utilising symbolism, the text represents two societies at odds regarding the prevalence of climate change.
