When Marnie Was There. (U.)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
Featuring Sara Takatsuki, Kasumi Arimura, Nanako Matsushima, Susumu Terajima, Toshie Negishi and Ryôko Moriyama. 103 mins.
There are quite a few weepy films coming out this week but none will have the poignancy of this Japanese animation. The sadness comes less from its story of a lonely young girl finding friendship and more from it being, as things stand, the final film from the legendary Studio Ghibli. The retirements of its two leading directors and co-founders, Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, have left a gap that the rest of the company has failed to fill. The loving craftsmanship and Miyazaki's gently dictatorial quality control that made the company so special– doing everything in house, retaining a large permanent staff, even when there was nothing in production – became weaknesses once the hits dried up. When Marnie underperformed in Japan on its 2014 release it announced a “temporary” halt to production.
In retrospect a certain air of gloom has hung over the studio's films for around a decade: only Ponyo was really upbeat and happy. This film focuses on Anna, a lonely asthmatic girl with no friends and raised by foster parents, who spends a summer by the sea to recuperate after a particularly severe attack. Here, the boyish looking Anna starts a friendship with the blond haired Marnie, a ghostly figure who appears in a deserted mansion. The film has many of the traditional Ghibli traits: lots of greenery and fresh air, a sick character needing to convalesce, a focus on an uncertain young girl trying to find her place in the world. It is lovely as almost all Ghibli films are, but the story has more melodrama than real charm and it all makes for a rather mopey farewell.
To support this release StudioCanal are running a Ghibli Forever season, with re-releases of their most famous films: which means all of Miyazaki's and most of Takahata's, including a new restoration of the latter's Only Yesterday. I'm not sure about the new dubbed version with Dev Patel and Daisy Ridley but it is a great and unusual film about an unmarried woman in her late twenties trying to assess her life and looking back to her days as a schoolgirl. It's a great example of what makes/ made Ghibli so special. Firstly it is the kind of story that nobody else would consider suitable for an animation. Secondly, like a number of the Studio's films, it saves its best moment for the closing credits.
Other Ghibli reviews:
Grave of the Fireflies.
Kiki's Delivery Service,
Tales of Earthsea
Ponyo
From up on Poppy Hill
The Wind Rises.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
Featuring Sara Takatsuki, Kasumi Arimura, Nanako Matsushima, Susumu Terajima, Toshie Negishi and Ryôko Moriyama. 103 mins.
There are quite a few weepy films coming out this week but none will have the poignancy of this Japanese animation. The sadness comes less from its story of a lonely young girl finding friendship and more from it being, as things stand, the final film from the legendary Studio Ghibli. The retirements of its two leading directors and co-founders, Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, have left a gap that the rest of the company has failed to fill. The loving craftsmanship and Miyazaki's gently dictatorial quality control that made the company so special– doing everything in house, retaining a large permanent staff, even when there was nothing in production – became weaknesses once the hits dried up. When Marnie underperformed in Japan on its 2014 release it announced a “temporary” halt to production.
In retrospect a certain air of gloom has hung over the studio's films for around a decade: only Ponyo was really upbeat and happy. This film focuses on Anna, a lonely asthmatic girl with no friends and raised by foster parents, who spends a summer by the sea to recuperate after a particularly severe attack. Here, the boyish looking Anna starts a friendship with the blond haired Marnie, a ghostly figure who appears in a deserted mansion. The film has many of the traditional Ghibli traits: lots of greenery and fresh air, a sick character needing to convalesce, a focus on an uncertain young girl trying to find her place in the world. It is lovely as almost all Ghibli films are, but the story has more melodrama than real charm and it all makes for a rather mopey farewell.
To support this release StudioCanal are running a Ghibli Forever season, with re-releases of their most famous films: which means all of Miyazaki's and most of Takahata's, including a new restoration of the latter's Only Yesterday. I'm not sure about the new dubbed version with Dev Patel and Daisy Ridley but it is a great and unusual film about an unmarried woman in her late twenties trying to assess her life and looking back to her days as a schoolgirl. It's a great example of what makes/ made Ghibli so special. Firstly it is the kind of story that nobody else would consider suitable for an animation. Secondly, like a number of the Studio's films, it saves its best moment for the closing credits.
Other Ghibli reviews:
Grave of the Fireflies.
Kiki's Delivery Service,
Tales of Earthsea
Ponyo
From up on Poppy Hill
The Wind Rises.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
