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In a summer film season stuffed with overblown sequels – all of which have seemingly been designed, test screened and marketed so rigidly that any trace of spontaneity and artistry has been lost – it’s a relief to come across a film like Tales from Earthsea, a fantasy adventure that genuinely aims to appeal to (rather than cynically pitch itself at) both adults and children. Simply put, Tales from Earthsea is a story about life and death; a return to basic dramatic themes that have been trivialized in countless action and adventure films of late, where life and death often seem to count for nothing. Amid all the dragons and wizards, Tales from Earthsea is a film about acknowledging death while also celebrating life, and is an animated film that manages to tell its tale without resorting to cheap sentimentality, crass comic sidekicks, lame pop-culture references or meaningless action scenes.

Based on the Earthsea series of books by Ursula K. Le Guin, the film begins like an animated equivalent a Star Wars prequel, with rather flat dialogue between some men on a sailing ship, followed by a scene of a King in a huge, ornate palace, who contemplates dire portents with his advisers. However, an attack on the King by a young boy, Arren (voiced by Matt Levin) comes as a huge shock. Arren flees the scene and his actions plunge the film into dark, uncertain territory. From this point on, Tales from Earthsea makes it clear that we won’t be watching a comforting fantasy film with clear definitions of good and evil. We are subsequently introduced to a wizard named Sparrowhawk (voiced by Timothy Dalton), a wanderer who encounters Arren on his travels and takes the boy under his wing. Arren and Sparrowhawk soon arrive in a coastal town, where the wizard senses that there is something strange about the place and its people. As the story progresses, a mysterious wizard named Cob (voiced by Willem Dafoe) is introduced, who is trying to capture Arren, and who has a special interest in Sparrowhawk.

While Tales from Earthsea is essentially a classic good-vs.-evil tale, the characters and themes are not presented in a clear-cut way. Instead, the film is complex in its plotting and has a measured pace, often wandering off the path of plot developments and surprise twists to contemplate the meaning behind the ideas that it presents. For instance, when there’s a cutaway to a cloudy sky a vast country landscape during a girl’s song, or when there’s a quick shot of a lizard scuttling next to a plough, it’s to reinforce the nature-vs.-technology theme that runs through the film. The presence of magic, which is wielded by the humans, is clearly paralleled with the misuse of technology in the modern world, which is throwing the natural order out of balance and damaging the environment.

While these ideas are occasionally presented as slightly heavy-handed lectures, the visuals are so potent and memorable that the message doesn’t seem forced, or the messenger too blunt. In fact, this concern for the environment is one of the many recurring themes that have appeared in previous Studio Ghibli productions, particularly in the films of Hayao Miyazaki, director of films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and the father of Tales from Earthsea director Goro Miyazaki. All of these Studio Ghibli films, as well as some others, deal with similar themes and ideas: the need of human beings to respect the natural world, a strong female protagonist who isn’t simply defined by their relationship to the male hero, and a protagonist undergoing a traumatic change of circumstances (often visualized with surreal and disturbing imagery).

Although the version of Tales from Earthsea that was reviewed was an English language dubbed print, thankfully the voice actors seem to have been cast for their ability to portray a character rather than simply for their marquee value or their pop-culture import. Aside from some ideas being overly verbalized rather than visualized, other minor criticisms would include some clunky exposition and a few strained narrative developments. Both of these problems may have occurred because the filmmakers have attempted to cram a wealth of source material into a film that runs just under two hours. But while some aspects of the plot and the characters may be lost or vague because there isn’t room for them to be included in the film, the various unanswered questions actually make us more curious about this world and its inhabitants, allowing a viewer’s imagination to fill in elements that are alluded to but not visualized.

Tales from Earthsea will probably – and unfortunately – be overshadowed by the deluge of generally average Hollywood films that have so far dominated the summer months in 2007. Far from being a film that transports us to another world of consequence free actions so that we can forget our real world troubles, Tales from Earthsea uses its fantasy milieu to reengage its audience with the universal themes of life and death that affect us all. These are weighty ideas to be sure, but they’re not dealt with pretentiously, and so they don’t drag the film down. On the contrary, Tales from Earthsea is a life affirming film that has more on its mind than selling tie-in meals and action figures to its audience, and, for that fact alone, it deserves to be seen.

© 2007 Martyn Bamber. All rights reserved.

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