The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
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They have given moviegoers around the world so many incredible gifts such as “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” and “Princess Mononoke.”
That company’s films — “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Ponyo,” “Spirited Away” — don’t rake in what a new “Toy Story” does.
The works of Hayao Miyazaki (2002's " Spirited Away ," 2009's " Ponyo "), especially, are good enough to endure through the ages, all of them as delightful as they are proudly quirky.
Although not directed by Hiyao Miyazaki (though he executive-produced and co-wrote it), the film retains the look and feel of the Spirited Away master's best work, allowing for huge emotions amidst a world of Lilliputian scope.
That certainly is the case for Japanese animation studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki, who has produced classic hand-animated 2-D films such as “Spirited Away” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
The BBC just did a new live action version last year, and now the filmmaking folks at Studio Ghibli -- responsible for films such as "Princess Mononoke," "Spirited Away" and "Ponyo" -- have tackled Norton's tale.
They have given moviegoers around the world so many incredible gifts such as “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” and “Princess Mononoke.”
A flat take on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers [ Amazon U.S. ] [ Amazon Canada ] [ Amazon U.K. ], about tiny humans who live secretly in symbiosis with normal-sized people, it pales next to Ghibli masterpieces such as Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro... partly because it fails to give any sort of Ghibli spin on a story that has been adapted to film so many times already.
Though The Secret World of Arrietty echoes themes and situations in other Miyazaki films — in particular, My Neighbor Totoro — it's the aging anime master's protege Hiromasa Yonebayashi who has taken up directing duties.
Slow, calm and quiet with beautifully detailed imagery, the Japanese fantasy may not be the greatest achievement of Studio Ghibli, which has given us the likes of My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, but its a real charmer with a big imaginationthe sort of film children need to grow up on.
Adapted by Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki from the popular British children’s book The Borrowers, Arrietty combines the bold, mature qualities of prior Ghibli fantasy outings like Spirited Away and Nausicaa with the droll humor of My Neighbor Totoro, resulting in a movie that is simultaneously thrilling and whimsically adorable.
Whereas Hiroyuki Morita was cribbing various plot details and scenes from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away with his debut film The Cat Returns, Yonebayashi’s Arrietty is a deliberate cribbing of the themes and techniques Miyazaki utilized in My Neighbor Totoro (it certainly doesn’t hurt that Miyazaki is credited as a co-screenwriter for the film).
They have given moviegoers around the world so many incredible gifts such as “Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” and “Princess Mononoke.”
The BBC just did a new live action version last year, and now the filmmaking folks at Studio Ghibli -- responsible for films such as "Princess Mononoke," "Spirited Away" and "Ponyo" -- have tackled Norton's tale.
The studio has famously produced Miyazaki's great animations "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," " Howl's Moving Castle ," and " Ponyo " as well as the rare film by someone else.
The most internationally famous pieces of the concern's never-computer-generated feature cartoon output have been directed by its co-founder Hayao Miyazaki : exhilarating, oft-surreal pictures like " Laputa: Castle in the Sky ," " Princess Mononoke " and " Spirited Away ," movies that often mix period elements with fantastical sci-fi concepts and blend obscure mythology and mind-blowing action, wedding all these elements to scenarios with decidedly heart-tugging intentions.
It also provides Disney the occasion to release a truly great piece of art, since Studio Ghibli -- founded by Hayao Miyazaki, widely considered the world's greatest living animator -- is responsible for some of the most wondrous animated features in the last several years, from Princess Mononoke to the Oscar-winning Spirited Away to the recent Ponyo .
Miyazaki, who’s just turned 70, developed and co-wrote the screenplay but handed the directing chores to Hiromasa Yonebayashi, an animator who’d worked on all Ghibli’s productions since 1997’s Princess Mononoke, including Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle .
That company’s films — “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Ponyo,” “Spirited Away” — don’t rake in what a new “Toy Story” does.
The plot is a familiar one, the tale of "The Borrowers" having been previously adapted to film several prior times, and so there isn't quite the same breadth of freshness and discovery as there is in, say, " Spirited Away " or 2005's "Howl's Moving Castle."
That certainly is the case for Japanese animation studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki, who has produced classic hand-animated 2-D films such as “Spirited Away” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
The studio has famously produced Miyazaki's great animations "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," " Howl's Moving Castle ," and " Ponyo " as well as the rare film by someone else.
In films like Howl's Moving Castle , animator Hayao Miyazaki, the guiding force behind the studio, came up with ingenious solutions to merging tiny and gigantic elements within a frame.
His towering achievement Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) was inspired by a British novel by Diana Wynne Jones, while Ponyo (2008) was loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen fable.
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Arrietty is clearly a kindred spirit to the heroines of Miyazaki's earlier "Nausicaä," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Princess Mononoke," and "Spirited Away."
A gentle surrealism washes through the film, along with a sense of melancholy that positions it between the fairy-tale beauty of “My Neighbor Totoro’’ and the whimsy of “Kiki’s Delivery Service’’ (and well short of the sometimes frightening intensity of “Spirited Away’’).
Written by animation master Hayao Miyazaki and helmed by animator and first-time director Yonebayashi Hiromasa, The Secret World of Arrietty follows in the footsteps of ultra-gentle Studio Ghibli family fare like Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service.