Miyazaki Madness, Part 12: "Arrietty the Borrower" is a quiet revelation
Don't sleep on this lovely bit of Ghibli magic
On Thursdays, I’m publishing reviews of classic movies, including pieces that have never appeared online before taken from my book 200 Reviews, available now in Paperback or on Kindle (which you should really consider buying, because it’s an awesome collection!). In this series, we are examining the filmography of my all-time favorite movie director - and newly minted two-time Oscar winner with his win for The Boy and the Heron - Hayao Miyazaki! We will be looking at all of his theatrical feature films along with the movies he wrote but did not direct, for a total of 15 weeks of Miyazaki Madness! The series continues today with Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s Arrietty the Borrower, written and storyboarded by Hayao Miyazaki. Enjoy…
Arrietty the Borrower
2010, Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Originally published February 18th, 2012 for the Fade to Lack blog Online, and The Denver Post’s YourHub in Print
Arrietty the Borrower, released in the United States this year under the title The Secret World of Arrietty, is an unspeakably beautiful little film, one that connects with the heart and mind on every possible level. Having watched the films of Studio Ghibli since I was little, I should no longer be this astonished by the house that Miyazaki built, but I cannot help myself; they are the best at what they do, and each film they release is a revelation.
Arrietty is based on Mary Norton’s classic novel The Borrowers, but writer Hayao Miyazaki and director Hiromasa Yonebayashi make the material their own, infusing it with unparalleled visual creativity, wonderfully endearing characters, and a poignant, underlying sense of melancholy that speaks to a special, intangible place in the hearts of every viewer. For children or for grown-ups, it is the best film playing in theatres this weekend, and I doubt it will be surpassed for some time.
When it comes to Ghibli, I am always amazed, first and foremost, by their storytelling, for Miyazaki and company avoid the conventions and pitfalls that so often destroy lesser films. I can imagine a horrifying American version of Arrietty where the title character’s parents try to quash her free-spirited nature, the humans are portrayed as evil, and Arrietty is berated by her kind for falling in love with one of them.
Yonebayashi’s Arrietty does none of this. Arrietty is a marvelous, strong-willed protagonist, and no more needs to be made of it than that. She has a pleasant, loving relationship with her parents, Pod and Homily, and there is no obnoxious family drama to speak of. She befriends a human, yes, and while this turns into love, it is not romance. Their love is far less obvious and far more meaningful. There is a human antagonist bent on capturing the Borrowers, which is the closest the story strays towards convention, but even this works in the film’s favor, for it adds a necessary weight to the emotional finale.
Most importantly, I love that Miyazaki and Yonebayashi are willing to forego a plot-driven structure in order to simply spend time with these characters, to watch the Borrowers operate in their wondrous little world and let the relationships develop organically. This is where the film’s true beauty lies. Arrietty, a Borrower, and Shō, a human boy living in the house her family borrows from, are drawn together by the sadness in their lives. Arrietty loves her parents, but they are the only other Borrowers she has ever known, and that loneliness has become hard to ignore. Shō, meanwhile, has a fatal heart condition, and has come the countryside for rest and relaxation while waiting for a surgery that has little chance of saving him. Shō’s greatest desire is to be needed, to find someone to whom he isn’t a burden, and Arrietty simply wants a friend. Together, they fulfill the empty places in the other’s soul. Their relationship develops in the subtlest, most beautifully restrained of ways, each scene they share producing smiles and tears in equal measure. Their final exchange, in particular, goes for an emotional wallop unsurpassed even by the greatest of Ghibli movies.
The animation is just as breathtaking as the characters, and while I could waste your and my time searching for the proper adjectives to describe it, such efforts would be futile. Watching Arrietty is akin to visiting a lovely art museum: The colors, the attention to detail, the simplistic yet fluid character work…all of it is gorgeous to a degree unseen in American animation, and the crazy thing is, this isn’t even first-tier work for Studio Ghibli. Some of the Miyazaki-helmed movies, like Spirited Away or Ponyo, are even more lavish than this.
Yet you would be hard-pressed to find a better musical score than Cecile Corbel’s, even in the world of Ghibli. Her compositions never pander or manipulate, but find a poignant aural connection to the emotions of each scene, enhancing every moment of the experience.
I have only scratched the surface of what Arrietty the Borrower has to offer. The rest is for you to discover, and discover it you absolutely should, especially if you a parent looking to entertain your children. Arrietty will foster their hearts and minds, not just their senses, and this is what sets Ghibli apart from the majority of American animation. There won’t be a better family film playing in theatres for a long time; take advantage of this opportunity while you can.
NEXT WEEK: Miyazaki the elder teams up with Miyazaki the younger (Gorō) for 2011’s From Up on Poppy Hill…
All Miyazaki Madness Pieces:
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