Legendary director Hayao Miyazaki’s final film (or so he always says) may be a little difficult to find out about, and that is exactly as Studio Ghibli wants it. The film, titled How Do You Live?, will be released with next to no marketing, as the studio feels that this in itself in enough to actually get audiences interested, and in Japan at least, they very much are.
When you are a legend, as Miyazaki is, having brought to life some of the greatest animated films of all time, you really don’t need loud fanfare. How does the saying go? Beautiful things don’t ask for attention, and that is exactly what the studio is running with. All we are aware of is that the film is loosely based on the 1937 novel of the same name written by Genzaburo Yoshino, which is a grand fantasy that follows a young boy’s emotional and philosophical development after his father’s death.
The only other crumb that fans have been offered is one rather obscure poster that was released back in December.
Miyazaki, and Studio Ghibli, are much more focused on creating beautiful, meaningful films than they are on profit and acclaim, and it is with this in mind that they have opted to stay schtum on this movie. The studio and its co-founder have used this technique before, limiting what it puts out in order to make what is out there more precious. They have put a limit on how their characters can be used in marketing or merchandise, even when they opened up the Ghibli Park they limited media coverage fearing that the park would become too popular and therefore overcrowded, ruining the ambiance and experience.
As for How Do You Live? other than the poster and the fact it is an adaption, nothing else is known about it. Not the plot summary, nor the voice cast, not even the general setting, leaving it an entire mystery for theatre-goers, something that many of us have forgotten existed in our modern over-exposed media world. The Hollywood Reporter reported Ghibli’s longtime lead producer Suzuki Toshio’s reasoning on the matter, with Suzuki saying:
“As part of company operations, over the years Ghibli has wanted people to come see the movies we’ve made. So we’ve thought about that and done a lot of different things for that purpose — but this time we were like, ‘Eh, we don’t need to do that.’ Doing the same thing you’ve done before, over and over, you get tired of it. So we wanted to do something different.”
He compares their tactic the that of an American film coming out roughly the same time as their own:
“There’s an American movie — ah, I almost said the title out loud! — coming out this summer around the same time. They’ve made three trailers for it, and released them one at a time. If you watch all three, you know everything that’s going to happen in that movie. So how do moviegoers feel about that? There must be people, who, after watching all the trailers, don’t want to actually go see the movie. So, I wanted to do the opposite of that.”
So viewers will actually be able to go watch a movie with no idea what they are getting themselves in for, but knowing it is a Studio Ghibli film, and Miyazaki’s last (wink wink) they know that no matter what, it’s going to be good. Of their current marketing blackout Suzuki adds, “Deep down, I think this is what moviegoers latently desire.”
How Do You Live? is set to premiere in Japan on July 14, but international audiences will have to wait in suspense for a little longer with no official date set.