Narrative technique · used in 3 films
Showing a character grow up by doing physical work, like learning a job, mastering a skill or taking on responsibility. The work is how they change.
Examples
Hayao Miyazaki · 1989
Work shows who Kiki is. Her first delivery goes wrong when crows attack, and she has to get the stuffed cat back from the painter's cabin. Each job puts a new problem in front of her, and she has to solve it.
Where to see it: The first delivery: the wind carries Kiki into a forest, crows attack her and the toy is lost, so Jiji pretends to be the toy while she recovers it.
Hayao Miyazaki · 1992
Fio's work shows her talent and her spirit. She is the granddaughter of the Milan mechanic Piccolo and rebuilds Porco's red seaplane herself. By watching her work, you learn who she is.
Where to see it: The Milan repairs: Fio rebuilds Porco's seaplane in Piccolo's workshop.
Hayao Miyazaki · 2001
Chihiro changes from passive and fearful to capable and determined, and the film shows that change entirely through her work in the bathhouse. Each task she masters (cleaning the bathtub, hauling coal in Kamaji's boiler room, serving guests) matches a step in her emotional growth. Miyazaki treats labor as dignity.
Where to see it: Chihiro scrubbing the giant bathtub. It's the film's central image of work as a way of finding yourself.
Questions