‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ is a film by Hayao Miyazaki made in 1985. The film takes place 1,000 years after the fall of the industrialized revolution and centers around Nausicaä, the princess of the Valley of the Wind. With the fall of the industrialized revolution the jungle became toxic, continuously spreading year after year. The jungle is not only toxic but home to perceivably dangerous, easily enraged insects. Of the insects the Ohmu is perceived as the most threatening and feared. 

The Valley of the Wind is framed as one of the few habitable places for humanity to exist. It is an idyllic place situated on the coast enabling a soft breeze to push the toxic spores of the forest out of the valley. While the Valley of the Wind is Nausicaä’s home it is clear she has a deep rooted curiosity in the jungle and the animals within it. 

While some ecocritics, like Viktor Eikman, are quick to comment on the fact that Nausicaä, in one of the opening scenes, removes an eye from an old Ohmu shell to use as a window saying: “it appears that even the heroine is glad to exploit threatening nature in symbolically emphatic ways to further human industry”. I find this criticism unfounded, you can have love and care for nature and natural beings while also utilizing what is left behind. It is not, I believe, out of lack of respect and desire to conquer nature that Nausicaä takes the Ohmu eye but rather a part of the natural cycle of such things. However, I shall yield on the point that within human history there are also times in which this practice was done exploitatively and without further context as with the ecological import of the old Ohmu shell it would be hard to determine if within this movie the practice was exploitative or not. 

Another point of criticism within the film comes from Nausicaä’s private home cultivated laboratory in which she took some of the most lethal jungle plants and grew them in a nontoxic environment. The criticism comes from her motivation and her decision to shut down her operation: “I was hoping to find a cure for my father’s illness, but it’s too late now, I’m shutting down, I’ve already cut off the water; soon these plants will wither and die”. The argument is that her reason for creating this small oasis is homocentric and personally motivating, yet I feel it would be unwise to ignore the setting in which this event occurred. Nausicaä just lost her father, her village has been taken over by hostile forces which are about to ship her to their own village. This idea of being a perfect guest within the environment and making the “right” decision seems overly critical and unrealistic. 

One point of criticism I will say that seems to land true is the oversimplistic ending. Much like the movie Avatar there is an underwhelming ending that fails to convey the most serious of ecological issues. Even the film’s creator Miyazaki shares a feeling of dissatisfaction with the ending, giving himself a film grade of 65/100, a barely passable score. 

Overall this is a beautiful film that breaks away from the fetishization of the natural world as an untamed virginal dame of which a male savior is there to protect. The film also does a wonderful job creating a female lead who through her inquisitive and explorative nature finds a path of understanding and connection to the world around her. Nausicaä’s careful character building lends a hand in the breakaway from fetishization since she does not have a purely spiritual connection to nature due only to the fact she is a woman.