Directed by Usman Riaz
Certificate 12a
98 minutes
Released 19 September

Although this looks and feels like a movie made by Japan’s famed drawn animation house Studio Ghibli, it is in fact Pakistan’s first animated feature: no mean feat given that country’s complete lack of animation production infrastructure. Even more remarkable is its top-notch storytelling and its unapologetic anti-war stance.

Set in a mythical country where war with the neighbouring country threatens to erupt over a disputed territory called The Great Ravine, the story focuses around a teenage romance between Vincent, the son of a fiercely pacifist glassblower, who is learning the family trade, and Alizz, the daughter of a billeted military commander, who is being tutored in playing the violin.

Delivery Service and Ponyo. As the narrative progresses there are firebombing air raid sequences recalling Nausicaä and The Boy and the Heron.

Their tale plays out against a backdrop of militaristic nationalism, with Vincent’s contemporaries signing up to fight while Alizz’s father pressurises Vincent’s father into supplying glass machine parts for the war effort contrary to his conscience.

Perhaps the most noteworthy difference between the two directors is that where the aviation-obsessed Miyazaki in The Wind Rises tacitly and problematically embraces Japan’s military ambition, Riaz comes down firmly against war and warfare, and without ever getting heavyhanded is highly articulate in doing so.

The piece successfully engages the complexities of economics, pacifism, the arms trade and the relationship of the arts to all these, all the while delivering a diverse group of all too human characters.

All this very much flies in the face of the far right ideas currently gaining worrying traction both in the UK and abroad, but never at the expense of artistry or storytelling. This is a real gem, and we are highly privileged to have it in UK cinemas.

Aficionados of Studio Ghibli’s output will find numerous echoes of the Miyazaki canon in the visual look and feel, the characters, design and settings. The two teens lie on the grass staring at the blue sky like the protagonists of Laputa: Castle in the sky. The whole thing takes place in a coastal town not dissimilar to those in Kiki’s

Jeremy Clarke is a film critic. jeremycprocessing.com