It's no secret that I'm a pretty diehard "kaiju eiga" fanatic, which stems back to when I saw my first Godzilla films around the time that I was entering second grade. In the three decades that have followed, I've been able to witness the genre twist and turn into all sorts of directions while still retaining some of its utter majesty and, well, coolness. As technology advances forward (with the likes of The Big G and King Kong themselves being entirely digitally rendered now), a motion picture like 2019's Howl from Beyond the Fog is a welcome throwback to a time when these features were doing what they could with what they had in terms of financial backing (if any at all). In this case, Howl is a beautifully done low budget short film featuring a cast comprised of nothing but puppets.
No, you certainly didn't read that wrong. Remember what I said yesterday?
The story is set during Japan's Meiji era, which ran for close to sixty years back in the 1860s. A young man named Eiji returns to Kyushu to meet his mother but when he arrives, he is startled to meet a blind woman named Takiri living with her, who instructs him to never speak of their encounter because according to her she's "supposed to be dead." One evening he spots Takiri near a lake. She hums softly and summons a giant creature from the water. Initially frightened, Eiji flees, but soon discovers through Takiri that this monster (named "Nebula") is quite misunderstood. Around this same time, developers are attempting to convince Eiji's mother to sell her land to facilitate the construction of a dam. Without going too much into spoilers, things...don't go well.
What makes Howl feel like a such a special little piece isn't just its aforementioned filmmaking choice, but how much they're able to accomplish by nearly make you forget that you're staring at primarily stone-faced marionettes and dolls. It also has remarkably good atmosphere in utilizing fog and water effects without it looking very jarring or the contrast being too noticeable. The score is also artistically orchestrated but not overpowering. I suppose that if I were to have any complaints (other than wishing this was a full-length feature and not a short film) it would be that the voice acting is a bit on the hit-or-miss side. Eiji and Takiri's performers are very good, but the film's primary antagonists sound very static or unenthusiastic rather than menacing or cruel. Those are very minor complaints though, as the positives far outweigh the negatives here.
I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but Howl from Beyond the Fog is an essential watch for those who are searching for something that is a love letter to the kaiju genre that doesn't seem like pandering. It's a beautiful passion project made by and for fans who yearn for something a little different but not distinctly alien. Currently, it's streaming on both Amazon Prime and Tubi. The actual movie itself runs for about thirty minutes, and the second half of its "runtime" is a behind-the-scenes look at its inception and creation. Pretty sweet.
Oh, I didn't mention that Nebula is cool, did I? Because Nebula totally is.
Tomorrow, we're ditching class and elegance and going back to Italy for some BRAAAAIIIIINNSSS.
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