Description:

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
(Hayao Miyazaki, 1984, Japan, 35mm, 117 min.)

In Hayao Miyazaki's beloved animated film, the world has turned into a toxic wasteland in the fallout of global war. Princess Nausicaä's home, the Valley of the Wind, is one of the few places remaining green and untouched, but becomes threatened by the mutated and destructive creatures of the post-apocalyptic world as well as the dangerous ambitions of rivaling empires of humans. Even in this, his second film, Miyazaki's trademark style and themes are well established; combining his imaginative vision with environmental concerns.

About the Series

Women at the End of the World

Inspired by Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the novel selected for Northwestern's yearly campus-wide One Book One Northwestern program, this series brings together cinematic visions of dystopia and apocalypse featuring women at their center. Like Atwood's novel, these four films all emerged in the mid-1980s, and all respond to the same political, ecological, and cultural anxieties that figure in The Handmaid's Tale through their diverse voices and divergent approaches to cinematic narrative.

Image © 1984 Studio Ghibli