Film Review: Arrietty

Tags

animation, anime, Arrietty, Homily, Mark Strong, Pod, Sho, Studio Ghibli, The Borrowers, Tom Holland

Things have been super busy lately what with Ception Theatre’s production of Little Bear at the International Youth Arts Festival in Kingston in which I played a hunter called Jaeger. We were only performing for three days but plays are time-consuming things and with all the rehearsals, travelling and flyering involved there hasn’t been too much time for blogging. My review of The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time 3D is on the way, as is that of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast which I finally bought on DVD recently but first comes the little matter of a brand new Studio Ghibli film.

Anyone who reads my blog regularly (which is practically no-one) will know that I’ve reviewed three of Mary Norton’s Borrowers books and that I’m a huge animation nutcase. Those two worlds have collided as Japan’s foremost creator of animated family films, Studio Ghibli has chosen to adapt the first book in the series under the title Arrietty, the name of the tiny young heroine. That Studio Ghibli, creators of such classic films as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,  Grave of the Fireflies,  Spirited Away and my personal favourite, Princess Mononoke is adapting this classic literary property is a big deal in itself even if studio bigwig Hayao Miyazaki isn’t at the helm, but it’s all the more significant for me given that I too am writing a children’s adventure story about little people living in secret beneath human floorboards.

The film hasn’t seen widespread release in the UK yet but during a recent visit to London’s Barbican Centre revealed I discovered that the film would be showing at the cinema there as part of their season celebrating animation. With the final performance of Little Bear in the bag Astarico and I booked our tickets and set off. What can I say about the Barbican Centre? It’s amazing. The huge, labyrinthine building is packed with entertainment venues, a library, artworks, bars and some very cool mirrors that make you feel like you’ve stepped into an Escher painting. You should definitely check it out if you get the chance and I certainly intend to go back as often as possible. Anyway, the screening in the packed underground cinema felt very prestigious and it was even introduced on stage by Tom Holland, the young actor who provided the voice for the character Sho in the English language dub of the film.

I was pleasantly surprised by the film’s fidelity to Mary Norton’s book. True, the setting has been moved from Leighton Buzzard to Japan but the plot itself is basically the same. Arrietty is a teenage borrower living with her parents in the foundation of a large secluded house. The family survive by ‘borrowing’ the things they need from the house but when a young boy with a heart problem comes to stay in the house and sees Arrietty the family realise they will soon have to leave to be safe.

As you might expect this is a simply gorgeous looking film. The colour and detail in still frames of Arrietty is more aesthetically beautiful than some entire animated films. Ghibli have made the most of the setting and situation, the big house and its charmingly overgrown grounds recall such films as The Secret Garden and Ghibli’s own My Neighbour Totoro and the invisible world inhabited by the miniature family is teeming with detail in every scene. Ghibli have followed Mary Norton’s lead and brought us a world with clothes pegs doubling as hair ties, ladders made of staples, and pins employed as swords. The characters all the hit the spot too. Arrietty is exactly the kind of curious bright heroine you’d expect from a Ghibli film, Homily’s amusing materialism is intact, the gentle Sho is very likeable and suspicious housekeeper Haru delivers some chuckle-worthy groaning. Only Pod, here voiced by Mark Strong, seems different from the book, presented as a quiet, stony-faced veteran of borrowing, but it’s nonetheless a very interesting interpretation. The voice cast are strong across the board. As always with English anime dubs you can tell where the actors had difficulty matching the rhythm of the script with the animation but that’s to be expected and the film copes well with it.

The similarities to My Neighbour Totoro are clear throughout, the story of a youngster moving to a rural house and befriending mythic creatures, the gentle pace, the inherent respect for nature in the narrative, but this new film differs in its slightly melancholy tone, another legacy of the book. It’s lovely that the film-makers have preserved the sense of anxiety the Clock family feels about being discovered but their need to remove from the house might not be so convincing to those unfamiliar to the book. In the same fashion Sho’s heart condition is a nice inclusion but nothing really comes of it plot-wise. The only really major departure from the book is the inclusion of Spiller who didn’t appear in the books until the first sequel, but his appearance is welcome.

I suspect the slow pace might not be popular with those looking for something exciting but there are some fun moments that combat this such as an episode with a crow and the sequence in which Sho and Arrietty team up to rescue Homily. Ultimately this is the kind of hypnotic film that beguiles rather than enthrals, lulling us with its vivid imagery and charming central friendship that tastefully hints at something sweetly romantic and is tied up with a simply beautiful soundtrack that sits somewhere between folk and new age. It’s the kind of film you watch to enjoy the beauty of animation and the charm of its timeless concept.

Verdict

An admirably faithful adaptation that might lack the visual invention of a Miyazaki picture but nonetheless delights from start to finish. Fans of Mary Norton and Studio Ghibli should track down a cinema that is screening this delightful film.

Book Review: The Borrowers Afloat – Mary Norton

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Arrietty, Homily, Mary Norton, Pod, The Borrowers Afloat

So Triss didn’t arrive in time for me to start it after finishing The Borrowers Afield so instead I decided to carry on with Mary Norton’s series in the mean time.

Our family of three, Pod, Homily and Arrietty are living with their relations, Hendreary, Lupy and their children in the gamekeeper’s cottage, but when the gamekeeper is taken ill he has to leave for hospital and his grandson Tom also moves out. Since borrowers depend on the presence of humans to survive they quickly realise that they won’t be able to stay in the house much longer and so plan to move out. With Spiller’s help they exit the establishment via a drain floating downstream in a wooden knife box as they travel to the miniature village of Little Fordham.

The Borrowers Afloat is a more eventful and exciting book than its predecessor although it takes a little while to get going while the two families discuss their predicament. The escape from the house is a breathless and vividly described sequence and there’s plenty of more excitement after that. Mary Norton doesn’t quite make the most of the scenario at times however and the book doesn’t feel like an evolution of the series. There are few surprises and you get nothing more than you expect.

This third book keeps the series ticking along quite nicely, maintaining its quirkiness and comedy and continuing to charm.

Verdict

An improved third outing that serves as a nice addition to the series but doesn’t excel like the original. Fans and youngsters will still enjoy it.

Book Review: The Borrowers Afield – Mary Norton

Tags

Arrietty, Homily, Mary Norton, Pod, The Borrowers Afield

When life gets really busy you havew to find the most efficient way to manage your time. I love reading but I love doing a lot of other things too. For that reason I do all my reading in my lunch break at work since I can’t watch movies or play games (except maybe handheld titles) there. I always go outside for lunch because the tea room where I work is about the size of an average public toilet cubicle, which means braving the elements. It’s been a cold, windy winter and I have shivered my way through most of the books I’ve read in the last year and a half, not a good thing, but it gave a strangely immersive quality to Mary Norton’s second tale about tiny people, The Borrower’s Afield, published in 1955, that I would never have got at home because this story sees the borrowers discovering the harsh outdoors.

We again begin with Kate, the same girl who heard the story of The Borrowers as told to her by Mrs May. This time after she and Mrs May set off on holiday to the town where the events of the stories took place she is treated to the next chapter of the story by Tom Goodenough whose knowledge of the borrowers is rather authoritative.

Jumping back in time the story proper picks up straight after the end of the first as Pod, Homily and Arrietty flee the house and cross fields in search of the badger’s set they believe their relatives now inhabit. Dodging insects and other fauna they set up home in a lost boot and meet a young field-going borrower called Spiller.

While the novelty of reading about miniature people hasn’t exactly worn off we’re familiar with it now and to match the value of the original Norton would have had to crank up the plot a few notches to give the book a boost. She didn’t. Instead we get a consistently amusing account of the family’s attempts to adapt to life under the sky with few twists. Things get more interesting towards the end and the comedy always hits the spot, especially Homily’s recurring incredulity at their surroundings and situation but it never really becomes riveting. That said there are plenty of worse ways to spend a lunch break and the youngsters should find plenty of wonder in the imagination on display.

Verdict

Another agreeable and witty foray into a tiny world that is as inoffensive as it is unambitious.

Book Review: The Borrowers – Mary Norton

Tags

Arrietty, borrowers, Homily, Mary, Norton, Pod

I decided to take a short break from my trek through the world of Redwall for two reasons, firstly to avoid overdosing on Jacques and secondly because I have a special reason for wanting to read this book. One of the two writing projects I have brewing away, an as-yet-untitled Victorian yarn, is inspired by stories that play on The Borrowers’ central inspired idea – tiny characters living, hidden in a big human world. It’s a setup I’ve loved since childhood and there are no shortage of such stories. To name a few: Terry Pratchett’s Nomes trilogy, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Pixar’s Ratatouille, The Legend of Zelda – The Minish Cap, and most importantly Disney’s forgotten classic The Great Mouse Detective, which will be the subject of my first film review very soon. I have vague memories of watching Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Mary Norton’s Carnegie Medal winning 1952 book but have curiously never read it until now.

The Borrowers begins with a little girl called Kate listening to a story told by elderly Mrs May who recounts the claims made by her brother about a time he spent in an old house near Leighton Buzzard (Mary Norton’s hometown) while recovering from illness. The narrative then switches to the Clock Family, Pod, Homily and Arrietty, tiny mouse-sized borrowers who live under the floorboards beneath the house’s grandfather clock.

Chances are that if you don’t know the story of The Borrowers you will know the premise. The term ‘borrower’ has long since entered pop culture due to the simplicity and irresistible charm of the idea. Kids of course will be enchanted by the concept of little people inhabiting the underfloors and wallspaces of houses and the rest of us can appreciate the borrower myth because we’ve all misplaced things and everybody is convinced that they have borrowers. This is the key to The Borrowers. It’s not just the little people that work so well but what they do.

It’s a short book and not one with a meandering plot but it doesn’t need one because the whole idea of ‘borrowing’ has all the momentum the narrative needs. The Clock family’s home is furnished with all sorts of nicknacks and trinkets Pod has managed to borrow from the house and Mary Norton’s imagination has done a fine job of considering what small everyday items might becaome for borrowers. Matchboxes become chests of drawers, postage stamps are used as pictures to hang on the wall as decoration, upturned drawing pins make for perfect candle-holders and of course the contents of a doll’s house are the perfect size for borrowers to make real use of. The attention to detail is great, it’s a real treat to lose yourself in this tiny world.

The plot concerns young Arrietty’s first forays into borrowing and her meeting with the aforementioned nine-year-old boy. Along the way we get plenty of detail about other borrower families that once inhabited various nooks and crannies of the house and are given a pretty vivid picture of the perils a borrower faces. Big things happen to the little people by the end and the final line will make you think about the power of imagination.

The writing style is a little dated but the central idea will never age, nor will the scope for what the characters can do, so it’s no surprise that this book has no fewer than four sequels. I have copies of the first two of these knocking around so expect reviews at some point in the future. No doubt I’ll track down the others at some point too.

Verdict

Timeless entertainment that can be enjoyed by young and old. The premise is strong enough to run on its own but Mary Norton hasn’t rested on her laurels delivering detailed justice to to an idea that really deserves it.