Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki is more mature in this film, if only because the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been destroyed by human activity and waste. Yes, it's an ecological advocacy, but if every environmental advocacy were presented in such a way, it would be fantastic. A beautiful story with great graphic ideas. (15/08/2017)

Magical Miyazaki knew how to captivate and move the audience from the very beginning. The theme of "boy and girl saving the world" is still unfinished, but adventurous ecological motifs, later expanded in Laputa or in Mononoke, were already working here. The only stumbling block is the overly drawn-out passage about the open war, but the rest pulled me into the irresistible world of Ohms, the Wasteland, and beautiful underground caves. (24/08/2007)

Miyazaki's imagination and enormous sense of grandeur is already evident in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the animation is as elaborate as it can be, and the number of strange creatures knows no bounds. At the forefront of it all is the brave Nausicaä, who masters (not only) so many martial arts that even Chuck Norris could envy her. The plot itself is well executed, but I had trouble thinking deeply about its meaning - too bad. Either way, this is a very promising early work from one of my favorite directors. (02/06/2011)

A post-apocalyptic ecological fantasy where medievally dressed people race around in planes that resemble WWII bombers and fight giant insects? I guess no combination is impossible when put together by a true visionary, which Hayao Miyazaki clearly is. The film won me over in the first fifteen minutes and held me tight until the end. (02/07/2023)

In the end, it was a very good movie after all. It didn't really grab me at first, I wasn't in the mood to be lectured on "the field of ecology", but then somewhere, at some point, the film won me over and I hoped it would last a while longer. In this case, Miyazaki's imagination and ability to shape a story did not disappoint me. I'm not a fan of films with ecological overtones, but this is the only one I would happily watch again. The only thing that disappointed me a bit was the soundtrack – bland, flavorless, it fit only one time (in the sense of "Yes, nothing else really fits here"), yet that didn't detract from the film. EDIT. 28 Jan 2017 – It's interesting how your tastes change. After almost seven years, I went to see the film in the cinema and ended up enjoying the soundtrack the most, I consider it one of Hisashi's best. On the other hand, I found the film itself perhaps a bit too lengthy, it couldn't hold my attention, so I'm downgrading it from the original 5 stars to 4 stars. Something was lacking in order for me to give it a full rating. (20/02/2010)