Sometimes the best things in life are short-lived and bittersweet. Relationships, sporting victories… animated films about relationships and sporting victories… Online review articles about animated films about relationships and sporting victories… Lists of things that are short-lived and bittersweet within online review articles about animated films about relationships and sporting victories… Or maybe not that last one.
Nasu: Summer in Andalusia is a 47 minute film from Madhouse under the direction of Kitarō Kōsaka, long-time collaborator of the great beast Ghibli, most notably as the animation supervisor for Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, if credentials could BE grander than that. Kōsaka adapted the film from a 3-book manga by one Iō Kuroda after having it recommended to him by Hayao Miyazaki himself, who it conspires is a great fan of cycling. The film is also notable in itself for being the first Japanese anime to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Nasu means eggplant in Japanese and the humble aubergine takes a key place in the visual narrative of the film. Pickled eggplant apparently being the local delicacy of Andalusia itself. The plot of the film follows Pepe Benengeli a young and under-appreciated professional cyclist as he competes in the penultimate leg of the Vuelta a España bicycle race which just so happens to pass through his old hometown on the day of his older brother’s wedding. Pepe’s relationship with the afore-mentioned brother and his new bride is a little… Strained to say the least and it clearly defines his attitude towards his hometown and past in general. Combine that with some more material and evidentially pressing doubts about his future as a professional racer and you find yourself naturally drawn into the unfolding race with greater appreciation of what it means to the young man.
This is where the film stands out as something a little different from the norm and of greater interest. Sure the ‘sport’ film centring around one big event and a plucky underdog with emotional depth is not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but the mature themes and method of presentation here are. The way the emotional weight of the race is slowly ramped up and the reasons why Pepe might want to blast through his hometown as fast as possible add a large degree of poignancy to the movie and elevate it from just another underdog story. This is no better shown than in the fact that the grand finale of the race and it’s, I’m sure entirely predictable to you, outcome is in no way the end of the film. And though definitely a triumph, it is not exactly portrayed to be a life-affirming ticket to happiness ever after for our plucky young hero. This is after all simply the penultimate leg of a much longer race, in a hopefully much longer career, which just so happens to coincide with another defining moment of moving on in his life. It is a re-affirmation of his dreams, and possibly an acceptance of his past, that Pepe gains, not the end of life’s problems. Wine and Nasu might have tasted bitter to him for a period, and he may have set himself in sullen opposition to the home they represent for him. But in the end, it is his home, they are his specialty to instruct others upon, and maybe here he has built some new memories to tie them to.
The films depiction of the actualities within the cycle race are also of note. I am not a particular follower of sport, and can’t say I find watching them to be of any particular interest. However I am well aware that a vast majority of ‘sport’ films do not do a particularly good job of portraying what said sport actually involves. I.e. A lot of strenuous exercise being pumped into an endless cycle of incremental victories rather than one or two grand moments of spectacular prowess. Of course there is still a fortunate moment involving a cat, but I think Nasu does a better job here of actually explaining the technical nuances inherent in the sport and visually portraying them. It even sort of takes away the ‘miracle’ nature of Pepe’s efforts by pointing out the facts that as a local rider he is at a distinct advantage, both in terms of local geography knowledge and his ability to ride in the climate conditions. The role of luck is also lauded upon, both visually in the aforementioned cat scenario and a burst tire and audibly as narrating characters explain the close-knit relationship between all the factors at play. As I’ve said before while this does deflate the overbearing spectacle of the grand finale so often flaunted in such films, it brings something else instead, a undercurrent of realism and continuing narrative that lends you more of a belief that these characters lives continue after we have left them.
Nasu: Summer in Andalusia is a more grown up and enduring film about a sport and a man who competes at it. It is short. It is focused. It spends a lot of time simply explaining the ins and outs of professional cycling. But because of all this it takes on a degree of life that other such underdog tales do not. It is a film about families and hometowns: how they can love you, support you and hurt you, and how you can race past them and leave them behind, only to find they’re always part of you.