Review: Arrietty
“I’ll never forget that summer…” So begins ‘Arrietty’ the latest animated adventure by the eminent Studio Ghibli as they delve head first once again into the magic and wonder of childhood. Over the last decade the name Ghibli has become ubiquitous with eye-catching fairy tales and fantasy epics, rendered in delicate hand drawn animation. Theirs is a world of flying cities, shape shifting racoons and river spirits. ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘Spirited Away’ and ‘Ponyo’ have all left their mark on Western audiences in recent years. Powerhouse animation studios in the US like Pixar and DreamWorks constantly trip over themselves in an attempt to shower praise on them. Their fan list goes all the way up to John Lasseter, you know the guy who wears all the Hawaiian shirts that make him look like a cartoon dog. Ironic I know. Hayao Miyazaki, the face of Ghibli and the director of its biggest hits including ‘Princess Mononoke’ and ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ takes a back seat in ‘Arrietty’ giving an opportunity for Hiromasa Yonebayashi to take the reins.
‘The Borrowers’ by Mary Norton is one of those books that are always ripe for the cinematic treatment. Its tale of a family of little people who live in houses ‘borrowing’ items from their human neighbours is precisely the kind of story that delights children and adults alike. Yonebayashi and his team of animators give Norton’s classic the full on Ghibli treatment, in a similar way to what they did to Dianne Wynne Jones’s novel ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’: First create new environmental subplots, then throw in a feisty female lead and finally coat the whole thing in a swirl of hand drawn magic. In ‘Arrietty’ a family of borrowers living in an old house in the Japanese countryside are thrown into disarray when a young boy arrives at the house to stay for the summer and sees their young daughter, ‘Arrietty’ in the garden. The young boy Sho and Arrietty strike up a tentative friendship which they must keep secret from their respective guardians.
The main selling point of a new Studio Ghibli film is always the beautiful 2-D animation. Yonebayashi and his team go for a more sophisticated look, taking a different path than the studio’s last feature ‘Ponyo’ which was completely hand drawn without the aid of special effects. Yonebayashi isn’t afraid of lifting some scenes by means of a dollop of CGI. Attention to detail in ‘Arrietty’ is extraordinary. The landscapes that are imagined are brought to life with incredible complexity and variety. Take the Borrowers’ house itself; it is a riot of bohemian charm with flowers adorning the walls and chess pieces looking like coats of armour in the hallway. When Sho lies down in a flower meadow, a cat softly purring on his chest and the late afternoon summer sun beating down upon him, you can feel the sun on your own cheeks and the soft grass under your body. Ghibli are masters at taking you into other worlds, even if sometimes that other world is simply a summer meadow.
There are some stunning action set pieces in ‘Arrietty’. A night time operation to retrieve some sugar, morphs into a dangerous mission that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bond flick or possibly even ‘Inception’. As Arrietty and her father hop across rusty nails and walk vertically up cabinets by means of sellotape attached to their shoes you empathise with these little people and pray they don’t get ambushed by a gang of rats. Ghibli adaptations always attract a mixture of A-List stars and character voice actors. In ‘Arrietty’ they have assembled a predominately British cast that includes Saoirse Ronan, Tom Hollander and Mark Strong.
‘Arrietty’ is mini Ghibli and does not scale the grand heights of some of its most noted masterpieces but it is never the less a charming and beautifully told family film. A film of quiet moments and stolen glances.
