You may have read and seen several pieces about the train scene from Spirited Away. It's a great scene, and there are several other scenes throughout Studio Ghibli that are equally beautiful but sadly not getting enough attention.
Today, I am talking about the “one last illusion” scene from Pom Poko, directed by Isao Takahata.
The scene in question comes towards the end of the film. The shape-shifting creatures called ‘Tanuki’ find their attempts to protect their home fruitless. They couldn’t stop the human’s industrial rampage and destruction of forest. It's time to accept fate and accept the fact that no crying will make it alright. They tried hard but they have failed.
One last time, though it will bring nothing, they decide to stage a grand illusion to remind everyone of what has been lost.
As all transforming Tanuki come together and hold hands to magnify their power, the scenery around them changes into what it used to be. Humans see their city turn back into the green village. The lifeless roads they have concreted turn into pleasant smelling mud-way, and by the roads run rivers with blue and pure water. They see their dead mother bringing freshly cut grass for the livestock. They see a world filled with life and crops and green trees and bushes, all in a pristine harmony.
The scene is elevated perfectly with the slow music with each note slightly above and lower than the previous. Composed wonderfully by Hasso Gakudan.
It's one of the scenes which magically transforms the movie from "a good movie" to a “masterpiece”. Like the train scene from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, or like the wolf scene from Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox.
The scene also reminds me of a quote often attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly." Tanuki are alone. And they can only stare. When they run towards the illusion, the magic breaks and everything changes back into the bleak present.
The once happy tanuki have to be forced to flee away from their natural habitat. They get divided. Some migrate to the deep hills where the forests still remain intact. Whereas some don't want to leave the place of their birth. Some who can shape-shift blends with the humans in the city.
Humans, too, create a few parks in the city, but these are not obviously enough. When the shape-shifted tanuki are tired from human lifestyle, they come back to their original form and run to embrace their own kind. And they probably perform the illusion again there for themselves, and for a while, though temporary, forget all this nonsense of the present.
