Epic and Whisper of the Heart
“That’s not a house. That’s termites holding hands,” protests the taxi driver, when he drops MK off at her father’s house. MK also looks at the house with trepidation, although not for the same reason: she hasn’t seen her father in ages, ever since her father wrecked his career and his marriage because of his belief that tiny people live hidden in the forest fighting an epic battle and good and evil.
Naturally he turns out to be completely right: the premise of the movie demands it. MKe’s ability to enter completely into his obsessions - by accidentally becoming a tiny forest person herself, in fact - reconciles father and daughter and apparently makes up for his years as an absentee father.
I must confess I have a pet peeve about this sort of plot. He turned out to be right about the tiny people, but that doesn’t erase the fact that researching the tiny people - research that will benefit no one, research that the tiny people themselves oppose - was more important to him than his own wife and child. I wish he had to meet MK at least halfway, rather than having her do all the work.
For all that, however - and for all that the plot is made of tissue paper and the characterization serviceable, but predictable - it’s a charming movie, particularly if you love tiny person stories. The animators clearly had great fun turning flowers, sticks, mushrooms, and sundry other things into tiny people, as well as choreographing the hummingbird-back flights.
***
Whisper of the Heart is a very different beast. I wish I had reviewed it alongside From Up On Poppy Hill, because they’re very similar movies: gentle, peaceful love stories with lovingly detailed backgrounds and no fantastical elements.
Or at least, Whisper of the Heart has no obviously, incontrovertibly fantastical elements. The DVD packaging on Whisper of the Heart is misleading: it suggests that the film dives into a fantasy world, when in fact the closest it gets are sequences from the story that Shizuku writes.
The film is nonetheless enchanting: there’s a sort of magical thinking logic behind it, so although nothing technically magical happens, it still has a fairy-tale feel. The story proper kicks off when bookworm Shizuku, on her way to the library, sees a cat riding the train with her. The cat seems so much like something out of a story that Shizuku follows it up a hill to a strange store full of rare and beautiful things - like a cat figurine with eyes that seem to wink at her in the light.
And a boy: a boy who makes violins. There is a really magical scene where Shizuku, accompanied by the boy, sings her own translation of “Country Road,” and the boy’s grandfather with two friends come in, quietly fetch their own instruments, and play an accompaniment.
Naturally he turns out to be completely right: the premise of the movie demands it. MKe’s ability to enter completely into his obsessions - by accidentally becoming a tiny forest person herself, in fact - reconciles father and daughter and apparently makes up for his years as an absentee father.
I must confess I have a pet peeve about this sort of plot. He turned out to be right about the tiny people, but that doesn’t erase the fact that researching the tiny people - research that will benefit no one, research that the tiny people themselves oppose - was more important to him than his own wife and child. I wish he had to meet MK at least halfway, rather than having her do all the work.
For all that, however - and for all that the plot is made of tissue paper and the characterization serviceable, but predictable - it’s a charming movie, particularly if you love tiny person stories. The animators clearly had great fun turning flowers, sticks, mushrooms, and sundry other things into tiny people, as well as choreographing the hummingbird-back flights.
***
Whisper of the Heart is a very different beast. I wish I had reviewed it alongside From Up On Poppy Hill, because they’re very similar movies: gentle, peaceful love stories with lovingly detailed backgrounds and no fantastical elements.
Or at least, Whisper of the Heart has no obviously, incontrovertibly fantastical elements. The DVD packaging on Whisper of the Heart is misleading: it suggests that the film dives into a fantasy world, when in fact the closest it gets are sequences from the story that Shizuku writes.
The film is nonetheless enchanting: there’s a sort of magical thinking logic behind it, so although nothing technically magical happens, it still has a fairy-tale feel. The story proper kicks off when bookworm Shizuku, on her way to the library, sees a cat riding the train with her. The cat seems so much like something out of a story that Shizuku follows it up a hill to a strange store full of rare and beautiful things - like a cat figurine with eyes that seem to wink at her in the light.
And a boy: a boy who makes violins. There is a really magical scene where Shizuku, accompanied by the boy, sings her own translation of “Country Road,” and the boy’s grandfather with two friends come in, quietly fetch their own instruments, and play an accompaniment.