Four stars. Rated PG, and pointlessly, solely because some characters smoke
By Derrick Bang
As has become a rather quirky
custom in recent years, two of the recently announced Academy Award nominees
for Best Animated Feature prompted bewildered frowns.
No surprise, since both are all
but unknown on these shores.
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| After a rather clumsy attempt at traversing the flooded marsh, Anna, left, gratefully accepts some rowing tips from her new best friend, Marnie. |
Brazil’s Boy and the World has yet to achieve wide release in the States,
although a few Northern California venues are scheduled to open it later this
month. Japan’s When Marnie Was There
supposedly received “limited release” last spring, after a few festival
appearances ... but it sure never played anywhere near our neighborhood.
Fortunately, Marnie is readily available for home viewing, having been released
on DVD and Blu-ray on Oct. 6. It’s definitely worth the rental — or purchase —
as it’s yet another of Studio Ghibli’s elegant fantasies, with a touching story
perfectly told via lush, hand-drawn animation.
More than anything else, Studio
Ghibli’s animators always establish a firm sense of place. Our heroine spends the bulk of her saga on the northernmost
island of Hokkaido, in a moody, wind-swept marshland that frequently floods
with the ocean tide. Grass sways gently; flowers and trees dance in the breeze;
water laps along the barren shore.
The film is based on British
author Joan G. Robinson’s 1967 novel of the same title, which until Studio
Ghibli’s interest had become almost impossible to find (along with most of her
other books). Hayao Miyazaki cited it as one of his 50 recommended children’s
books, and in late 2013 announced that his studio would bring it to the big
screen.
This wide-ranging interest in
classic children’s fiction comes as no surprise to longtime Studio Ghibli fans,
since 2010’s The Secret World of Arrietty was based on British author Mary Norton’s The
Borrowers. That film was co-scripted by Miyazaki and directed by Hiromasa
Yonebayashi; the latter has directed When
Marnie Was There, and adapted it with co-scripters Keiko Niwa and Masashi
Ando.
They’ve done a lovely job.
Our young protagonist, Anna, is a
typical Studio Ghibli heroine who feels disconnected from the rest of the
world. With short hair and plain clothes, she looks more like a boy than a
girl: likely a bit of emotional defiance every bit as protectively concealing
as the plain face she displays at all times.
“Everyone else is inside: inside
some sort of invisible magic circle,” she ponders, during a moment of interior
reflection lifted directly from Robinson’s novel. “But I’m outside.”
