Kirpianuscus
a delicate story. about friendship, courage, hope and family. a touching meet. and a special form of adventure. like many Japanese cartoons, "The Secret World of Arretty" is seductive not only for the aesthetic virtues but for a story like a trip in a large garden of senses. because its premise is very simple - accidentally clash between two words. the parents of Arrietty are like parents of us. the health problem of Sho is one of the old themes . and something is profound different. a state. a perspective about near small details of every day reality. and the changes of lives.
Movie Nights
I am very certain at some point, after watching a film, everyone of you thought "this is a great idea, it's too bad they didn't do much with it". Well, this is how i felt watching The Secret World of Arrietty, a film that has a lot of promises based on it's premise, but sadly suffers from the plot being way too thin for it's own good.This is not to say this is a bad movie. In fact, i enjoyed a lot of it's good qualities that you've come to expect from Ghibli productions, such as the fantastic art, the soundtrack, and the clever design choices for it's fantasy elements. But, taking those things for granted, and compared to a lot of this company's films, this one sadly just doesn't live up to my expectations.The story revolves around this little girl called Arrietty, who lives with a family of tiny people called "Borrowers" that live hidden inside the houses of normal people. The conflict arises when Spiller, the boy from the house, discovers the existence of these tiny creatures.The creativity of the movie shines with the way the borrowers use household objects that the people drop or don't use and them utilizes them for their everyday lives. For example, during the film Arrietty finds a needle and uses it as a sword, being this her first borrowing. It's also neat watching the tiny people navigate through the house, having to make it through obstacles to get to where they need to. One detail that i really liked is the pictures Arrietty's grandmother places in their windows, helping her reach her ideal image of the house she wishes to live in.And… that's about the only thing the movie excels at. Everything else is just "ok". The characters are fine, but unremarkable, none of them really made an impression on me, and in fact i was quite annoyed at how underplayed their emotions were during the important emotional scenes of the movie, where i feel like they should've been far more intense.One could say that everything in this movie is small and subtle, however i think the situations presented (discovering that there's a race of little people, being forcefully moved from your house) called for more emotional reactions from the characters.The movie is also fairly thin on plot. I'm not saying it should've been some complicated, 2 hour long movie with an insane complex plot, but the downtime in the film is just too much in my opinion, especially since most of the time there's not a lot of interesting or thought provoking imagery to watch while the plot takes a break (i should mention that the screenplay was written by Hayao Miyazaki himself, based on the Mary Norton novel "The Borrowers").The main villain's motivations are fairly weak. It's never really explained why she wants to get rid of the tiny people. I assumed she saw them as plague, and they were stealing their stuff, but why didn't Spiller reveal to the old lady that they could talk? They could've solved their differences through dialogue. Instead of just playing dumb, Spiller could've done much more to protect the little people once Arrietty started talking to him.I know this might seem like i'm reaching a bit, but it seriously bothered me that i felt so apathetic towards the villain, and in consequence, the movie's main conflict. I never felt like the characters were in real danger at any point because the stakes were so low.Although the music, the visuals and animation were fairly nice, there wasn't any particularly memorable moment, any outstanding shot, or anything that would stick with me after the movie ended. Well… some bits, but not much for an hour and a half film.Now don't get me wrong, i think the movie is decent and has a lot of good things going for it, especially it's great set pieces and overall laid back tone and pace. If someone told me this was their favorite Ghibli film, i wouldn't question them. But for me, this movie lacked that special "something" that makes other Ghibli movies great fun to watch for me, even with their slow pace.If you are a fan of Ghibli, or maybe a fan of slow, comfortable films in general then i'd say give this a try, it might just be a film you end up loving.6/10see my far more detailed reviews at http://movienights.tumblr.com/
hayashimegumi
I have not read the book but The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) has awesome concept and tiny humanoid creatures called the borrower. They are a little like ants and there are so many adorable tiny DIY creations such as stamps as wall decors!Not going to spoil it too much but I think this animated feature could made several if not many innocent, curious children leaving sugars or sweets and double sided tapes for the borrowers! (Borrowing is joy to them but sadly not for all us in reality as it is not a norm!)Although the animated feature is not entirely realistic, it is still quite beautiful and entertaining. When compared to other previous directorial debuts, this is certainly one of the better ones from Studio Ghibli (unlike Tales of Earthsea) even though there are some illogical scenes.Finally, this review is based on the Japanese version of The Secret World of Arrietty (2010). The song is moving and the atmosphere could be sad. The short adventure and friendship can be satisfying if you are genuinely interested with fantasy.If the author of The Borrower is still here with us today, she would be so happy and proud of Hiromasa Yonebayashi's The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) because the anime adaptation directed by the new Studio Ghibli director does not disappoint!
