Winter Movies 2013: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

For the last movie in our winter series, where plants play the starring role, I picked the Japanese animé, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind from 1984. The film was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and based on his manga by the same name, released two years earlier. The post-apocalyptic story takes place in a small kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind, set in future Earth. One thousand years in the past man had destroyed the Earth in a nuclear event, called the “Seven Days of Fire,” leaving small groups of survivors. One of the surviving groups is a small seaside kingdom—The Valley of the Wind—which is ruled by King Jil. They are ever threatened by the proximity of the Toxic Jungle and the presence of gigantic insect-like Ohm creatures from beyond the Sea of Decay, but kept safe from toxic spores by prevailing coastal winds.

 

In the movie, neighboring Tolmekian people want to destroy the Sea of Decay using the warriors that caused the holocaust. Acting on a hunch and connection she feels to the land, Princess Nausicaä seeks to understand the Toxic Forest. She is captured by the Tolmekian people, escapes, and takes refuge under the Sea of Decay. There she learns that the Toxic Forest is actually purifying the air. Armed with this knowledge, she works with the Ohms to foil the plans of the Tolmekian people.

What I love about this story is that the Toxic Forest is actually fungi! We learned in my Plant Diseases class that fungi “eat through their food” - they send out mycelium, which start digesting their food, and absorb the nutrients. Some fungi can actually eat through toxic substances, and render them harmless. Fungi are used in bioremediation to reclaim toxic soil and water; human hair mats inoculated with oyster mushrooms were used in the 2007 cleanup of the San Francisco Bay Area oil spill (the mushrooms are not contaminated)! Watch the trailer and look for the mycelium and reproductive spores: http://youtu.be/7wSba9hwCaU