Nasu ~ Summer in Andalusia

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Anime Review
Nasu ~ Summer in Andalusia is an independent anime film conceived and directed by an ex-Studio Ghibli staff member, and tells the story of a bicycle race in Spain.

Let me be clear: this movie tells the story of the final hours in a professional bicycle race that's happening in Spain. There are no fantastical powers, no moe girls, no fanservice, and no holes into other dimensions. The lead character, a professional bike racer, isn't even a special bicycle racer.

But Nasu is about far more than that. Without spoiling the plot--and much of Nasu's pleasure comes in understanding its themes and philosophies as they're slowly revealed to the viewer--the story touches on family, determination, courage, and loss. Take a Satoshi Kon film, remove the mind-bending questions about the nature of reality, keep his films' meditations on human nature, and you'd get something like Nasu.

But Nasu sports the budget of a Mamoru Hosoda film. It's not quite a Ghibli budget, since only Ghibli can guarantee the kind of success that warrants its budgets, but Nasu abounds with movement and carefully-crafted detail. Bicycles have weight, characters lean heavily, and the air shimmers with afternoon heat.

The film moves at the same relatively unhurried pace as the race; the competitors are experts in the conservation and application of energy. That ebb and flow is central to the film, as the racers must think not only about their effort this moment, but the effort required at each stage of the course and through the entire day. Is it worth pushing yourself to win this race and be too exhausted for next week's?

Nasu has some of the strange "plotless wonder" of a Ghibli film. A movie about a bicycle race should be dull, but somehow the director manages to pile on sub-plot and tension without creating feelings of uncomfortable tension in the viewer. On one level, it's simple, on another level, it's amazingly complex.

I'm reminded of a moment near the end of the film, when the protagonist bikes alone to a rocky outcropping that overlooks a town below. He stops, gets off his bike, and looks down at the town. It's a quiet moment of reflection that we'd never have in a Hollywood film--nothing's happening!--but which sums up many of the film's themes.

It's the simple things that are usually the best.