In a world of rapid-fire CGI quips from Hollywood, it’s refreshing to disappear
into the world of a hand-drawn Studio Ghibli film from Japan. It’s a calm, patient oasis
in the middle of a hectic modern world. Their newest film to be brought by
Disney to our shores is The Secret World
of Arrietty, a version of Mary Norton’s book The Borrowers adapted by Ghibli’s rightly beloved co-creator Hayao
Miyazaki. The story follows a family of toy-sized people who live under the
floorboards and in the walls of an old house in the countryside, sneaking into
rooms at night to borrow only what they need: a cube of sugar, a tissue, a pin.
As the movie begins, a sickly young boy shows up to live with his aunt and get
some rest in advance of a risky surgery that is necessary to save his life. He
thinks he spots these fabled little people; the thought delights him. The little
family, daughter Arrietty, her steady father and excitable mother, think they’ve
been spotted too; the thought terrifies them. It’s a movie about survival, but
only in the quietest, most melancholic sense. It’s a movie about learning to be
kind to your neighbors, to take chances in learning to understand one another.
It’s sweet and simple, but with a lovely attention to emotional – and, in true
Ghibli fashion, visual – detail. Animator and first-time director Hiromasa
Yonebayashi creates a world of new perspectives, following the borrowers’ point
of view, which shows our world from a much lower angle, then switching to the
boy’s view, making the common world uncommon. Ultimately, the film doesn’t have
the majesty of Miyazaki’s own masterworks, but its still moving in a modest
way. Like all of the great Studio Ghilbi films, it traces an invisible line
between reality and fantasy, between nature and magic, with nimble beauty and
heartfelt skill.
