Movie : The Secret World of Arrietty, or: The difference between being small and feeling small
Link : The Secret World of Arrietty, or: The difference between being small and feeling small
The Secret World of Arrietty, or: The difference between being small and feeling small
The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
***SPOILERS***
After witnessing an atrocity known as The Lorax, you'll come to hold a high level of appreciation for a Hayao Miyazaki screenplay—even if it’s not one of his finer efforts. Amidst a supposed “retirement,” Miyazaki has handed his script to first-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who worked with Miyazaki for years in the animation department. The results couldn’t be clearer: The Secret World of Arrietty is brimming with beauty, in both color and scope, both of which only grow more magnificent as a backdrop for main character, Arrietty. And beyond the aesthetics, the dynamic featured between “big vs. small” is one not previously explored by Miyazaki in such a literal sense. While many of his characters from previous films have dealt with solitude and dire situations vicariously through their imaginations, Arrietty’s small world allows him to candidly analyze such a contrast. Perhaps he gave himself too much freedom, because while the magic of a Miyazaki script is wholly apparent throughout, it’s a rare venture for the famed director that feels both weighed down and burdened by his intentions.
Let’s get one thing straight: The Secret World of Arrietty is miles ahead of most films pumped out of the Dreamworks studio. Miyazaki’s script actually does an admirable job in subtlety exploring the difference not only between big and small, but big and feeling small. Arrietty longs to find other Borrowers and desperately clings to her parents. She shows hesitation towards the boy at first (as seen with the note under the sugar cube), but slowly allows the boy into her life. Going beyond physically being small, the boy concurrently feels the same. The opening shot features the boy staring into a towering tree, which is immediately followed by catching a glimpse of Arrietty, who fails in comparison to the blades of grass and ensuing predators. Thus, an immediate connection is formed.
But it’d be silly for a physical encounter to remain their sole attraction toward one another. The boy is revealed to be very ill, which becomes both Miyazaki’s way of extending the relationship to a personal level…and probably his most mediocre execution of such an idea to date. Illness is nothing new to Miyazaki—it’s what catapulted My Neighbor Totoro from pure nostalgia to a full-blown wallop of an emotional rollercoaster. Totoro is a distraction; a tool for the children to vent their frustrations and inabilities to solve their crisis: a sick mother who hasn’t come home. The illness was never brought to the forefront, allowing the children to bask in their mother’s presence with pure joy, burying the melancholy deeper and deeper by allowing their imaginations to run free. What made Totoro so great was the subtlety interweaved with the imagination—something kids can connect with on a deeper level without realizing. Subtlety is replaced with bluntness in Arrietty, creating a tale that’s true in heart, but lacking in execution.
Children will make these connections. What’s more powerful: the boy actively stating he will soon die, or the bypassed mentioning of his illness by his relatives? The candid statement, or the pain hardened on the boy's face, clearly building with each passing day as his unsolvable situation escapes him? The surface view of the boy’s life is key in the film—it’s all about Arrietty, while the boy is merely a contrast to reveal her smallness can be felt by anyone, even those 100 times her size. The forays into the boy’s life are given such prominence that they become less of a contrast and more of an equal storyline. And yeah, I get it: the boy’s situation is severely depressing. He moves from home to home, hospital to hospital, and shares the same sense of solidarity as Arrietty. But Arrietty’s world is contrasted with the larger world; with the suppression by her parents; by the desperation to find more Borrowers and feel part of a community. The boy’s situation seems haphazard, if not lazy by Miyazaki standards. His childlike ambition is contrasted with his cartoonishly snide grandma, who’s ambition to capture the Borrowers seems too convenient, contrived and radical to hold any real importance beyond creating some slapsticky humor and an offhand rescue mission. What’s the gap between the grandma and the boy? And does it even hold a candle to Arietty’s larger dynamics?
The larger idea being relayed is the suppression felt by the parental figures. Arrietty is told to stay away from the boy, while the grandma’s pursuit of the Borrowers constrasts the boy’s desire to protect Arrietty, since he cannot protect himself. They each live amongst people (or Borrowers) who don’t understand their predicaments, thus they form a bond to deal with such a problem. But again, the boy feels much more like a vent for Miyazaki than an actual character, which makes him more of a distraction than a tool to build Arrietty. As wonderful as a Miyazaki film can be, your eyes may start to creep into the back of your head when the boy utters the line, “You protected me after all.” This connection couldn’t be more clear, yet Miyazaki steps out of his element in penning such a piece of dialogue. Never before has such impetuousness crept into one of his films, as the main character’s imagination usually handles such a metaphor—a metaphor children don’t need spoon fed to understand.
Physically displaying this dynamic becomes a strong suit, and it actually has more to do with Yonebayashi. When the boy converses with Arrietty in his room, she stands outside the window, only revealing her shadow. Arrietty’s shadow physically represents her shrouded personal life, while it also accurately reflects boy’s seclusion. Shots are constantly presented in deep focus, revealing the vastness of Arrietty’s surroundings. When the boy scoops Arrietty into this hand, the sound vanishes. And while all these attributes are great additions to the larger metaphor at hand, they’re crippled by a script that can’t incorporate such a message with the same emotional punch as My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away. Yet, there’s still a slim level of fascination and pure joy brimming underneath the surface of The Secret World of Arrietty. The inability to release it represents one of the few and only times Miyazaki bit off more than he can chew.
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