Boh Selecta!

03/10/2009 at 13:41 Leave a comment

Yubaba kicks off.

We were all watching the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) last night, which is a rather psychedelic Japanese animation epic much loved in the house. The main villain in the story is called Yubaba and she is a cross between the Wicked Witch of the North and a giant raven. Yubaba has a son, Boh who is a giant baby and when Boh made his appearance, Phoenix went barking bonkers. She had been paying close attention to the film anyway, and we assumed it was all the bright colours and possibly the Japanese language which (to her floppy ears at least) might sound a bit like barking.

This baby causes canine chaos.

Whatever it was about this giant baby, it did something to Phoenix which took a while to get over. We’re going to try her on some Kurosawa next, to see if it’s Japanese epics in particular that set her off, before moving on to Italian neo-realism and perhaps German expressionism…