Dear Miyazaki-san,

First off, I would like to apologize for how insufficient this letter will prove to become. There is a great deal in my heart that I can't translate into words-- partly because these are things that can only be felt, and partly because I have been under the strain of writer's block for some time now. However, I will try my best.

I have been watching your films since I can remember. More than the school system or any teacher has ever been, your films have been my guide and counsellor in life. I am a young woman, and your young and female heroines resonate with me, inspire me incredibly. I watch the planet's health deteriorate today from my very window and I feel grateful someone else sees it the way I do-- this loss of life and beauty we lay waste to. And I watch my friends and peers grow increasingly obsessed with money, fame, wealth. I hear the words of loved ones urging me to take up the archetypal "perfect life" of postmodern society-- one where I, in a literal and figurative sense, am consumed by commercial forces and capital greed. And like you, I wistfully think back to simpler, primitive times. In this time and age of modernity, I see a lot of technological brilliance that does not compensate for our loss of ability to sit silently in a room and think-- to appreciate raw, natural beauty, to feel a purpose more spiritual than one of pleasure seeking and happiness obtaining.

Your films gave me companionship. As I watch them, I am not alone. Then, through the internet, I found other people with the same passion for your films and found human companionship. To tell you, "thank you" would not envelop the amount of gratitude I have that you exist and I exist in a time where I can view your films. Truth be told, when suffering in my life reached nearly unbearable heights, it was many a good story that allowed me to fight on.

I also watched Sunada Mami's documentary "The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness". I realized there is, in fact, very little I know about you. What little I can draw from interviews I have seen and projected messages in your films might as well be my romanticized assumptions… I cannot possibly know, in my ingenuity, what leads you to doubt whether movies are worthwhile or not. I don't know what leads you to say that filmmaking brings about only suffering, and "cursed dreams". So it may be presumptuous of me to say this:

They are not cursed dreams. They are worthwhile. They have changed my life, and countless others' as well. We are all thanking you because in this time and age there are a dearth of beautiful things and I fear without your films, we would be lacking them all together.

And so: I hope the spirit of this letter was not lost through its translation from English to Japanese. I hope you understand. Thank you, Miyazaki-san.

With Love,
Natasha Carr-Harris
Vancouver, CANADA