I’m glad that the movie actually seems to be doing ok here in the States so far; when I went to see it, there were actually a good number of families there, all of which seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a bit with pleasingly appropriate reactions at various points in the movie. And my local theater doesn’t usually have too many people in it!
Anyway, I loved the movie. It doesn’t deliver in the enormously satisfying sense that Spirited Away or other ‘big’ Ghibli movies do, but it’s a relatively simple story, and it’s charmingly executed. I don’t have any major criticisms with the movie. It’s pleasant, beautiful in multiple senses of the word and pretty well paced. I quite liked Cecile Corbel’s music as well. It complimented the setting well and as much as I adore Joe Hisaishi, it’s refreshing to have a different composer onboard a Ghibli film.
Was Nausicaa the first? Anyway, that one, with Princess Mononoke, is my favorite. Kenzie, you always say you like strong female leads. Well, Miyzaki is definitely the place to find those.
Technically, Studio Ghibli wasn’t fully formed when the team made Nausicaä, but it’s still generally regarded as a Ghibli movie. It released in 1984, so it technically is the first going by this.
And definitely, Ghibli heroines are fantastic!
What a pleasure to have the opportunity to be going to see a certain excellent film, from this studio and with a 95% TM rating! I’ve been super busy at work the past 2 months, but went to a seconds theater in Cupertino to see a 5pm showing on Saturday. There were about 30 other people there, we each paid $5. From the moment the movie started, I could see it fulfilled my expectations. The hand drawn pictures of this nature movie were quite nice. There was a lot of attention to creating a world at this scale, perhaps even more than one would see in Antz and A Bug’s Life. The kids and adults in the audience seemed quite pleased!
I’m only vaguely familiar with the book, The Borrowers, a series by Mary Norton, an Englishwoman, starting in 1952. It seems that my family steered a lot of hand-me-downs and Catholic publishing and Scholastic my way, and not Newberry Medal winners. The characters seem anglicized (edit: yes they are, after further reading the story is English and not Japanese in origin) and in the credits was the name of Gary Rydstrom (sound designer, many academy nominations, director for moribund Newt) leading the English production team, followed by a small army of Japanese names, a few of which were recognizable.
Some comments about the heroines of Studio Ghibli. I actually found the 10 year old boy in the movie to be much more effective, empathetic. This wasn’t the case with Ponyo or some other of their productions, where the female lead does quite well. Half of the ‘Borrowers’ didn’t seem that interesting to me, and given their large parts, that was a big deficit. The one who seemed like an Aleut or forest creature was very interesting, largely undeveloped tho. The big people were much more clearly defined.
