There are very few filmmakers who could reasonably claim to know more about the relationship between melancholy and fantasy than Hiromasa Yonebayashi. His first two films as a director - The Secret World of Arrietty and When Marnie Was There - are masterpieces of loneliness, in which isolated heroes embark upon enchanting larger-than-life adventures and mature into better, more heroic people. And of course, those stories are animated as beautifully as anyone could possibly hope for.
So it’s unfortunate that Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s third film, and his first outside of Studio Ghibli, simply isn’t as magical as the others. (And pretty ironic, considering this one is literally about magic.) Once again, the director has set out to tell a story about a stifled young person whose personal hangups parallel the lessons she must learn throughout a perilous, fantastical journey, only this time she doesn’t appear to learn anything particularly meaningful, and even the plot smacks of familiarity. It’s the same amount of effort for less reward than usual.
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So it’s unfortunate that Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s third film, and his first outside of Studio Ghibli, simply isn’t as magical as the others. (And pretty ironic, considering this one is literally about magic.) Once again, the director has set out to tell a story about a stifled young person whose personal hangups parallel the lessons she must learn throughout a perilous, fantastical journey, only this time she doesn’t appear to learn anything particularly meaningful, and even the plot smacks of familiarity. It’s the same amount of effort for less reward than usual.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...