Streaming: N/A. Disc release forthcoming (May 1st, 2018)
Source: Novel
Episodes: 1 (film)
Summary: Young Mary Smith moves to the countryside to live with her great aunt Charlotte while her parents are away. Mary wants more than anything to be useful, but she’s a clumsy person and often causes more problems than she solves. While lamenting her situation one day, she encounters two cats – Tib and Gib – who lead her to a forest glade where a cluster of spectacular blue flowers are growing. Mary takes the blossoms back to her room to admire them, but soon discovers that they’re more than just attractive blooms – the flowers, called “fly-by-night” by magic users, bloom but once in seven years and have the power to grant magical abilities to even the most mundane of user.
Mary stumbles into these mystic powers and finds herself a magic broom, which takes her to Endor College, a witch school above the clouds. She’s mistaken for a magical prodigy and the headmistress goes so far as to approach her about joining the honors classes, but it isn’t long until her secret is discovered and the faculty of the school chases Mary down in search of the fly-by-night blossoms. Mary must them protect herself, rescue her friend Peter and his cats, and make sure that the flowers don’t fall into the hands of those who would try to use them for horrifying experiments.
Review: This review contains mild plot spoilers for the film.
It’s cliche at this point for one to speculate on what Japanese animation studio will turn out to be the “next Ghibli.” It’s difficult to define exactly what that’s supposed to mean – Ghibli’s output has encompassed films aimed squarely at very young children (Ponyo or My Neighbor Totoro, for example), to more intense adventures that families can enjoy (Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), to films that I’d argue take more maturity to appreciate (Porco Rosso, Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies). Does Ghibli mean “animation quality?” “Story craft?” “Character and background design?” I’ve seen all of these traits thrown around as potential components of the Ghibli magic that’s captivated animation fans all over the world, and even somehow managed to gain credo with the incredibly insular, inscrutable, and in my opinion, sometimes downright infuriating Academy Award voters (seriously, Boss Baby over Your Name? You’ve got to be kidding me). Whether or not there’s a definitive way to identify the Ghibli style is a question that I’ll leave to others who are more invested in it. As for myself, I’m just enjoying the fact that, as animators and directors graduate from Ghibli, we’re able to enjoy the new perspectives they bring to this classic film making form.
Much like Hosoda Mamoru, Hiromasa Yonebayashi worked for Studio Ghibli as an animator and director before venturing off on his own to join the newly-established Studio Ponoc. Mary and the Witch’s Flower, the studio’s first feature-length animation, captures a lot of the classic family-friendly charm that typifies the bulk of Ghibli’s output, while providing a enough freshness to distinguish itself and its creative staff from their predecessors.
I commented on social media that one thing that charmed me about the film was that it seemed to speak to me as a little girl who always wanted to grow up to become a witch. Similar to the Harry Potter series, Mary and the Witch’s Flower suggests that there might be an entire secret world out there, where magic is real and those with a talent for it might be able to distinguish themselves and make impossible things happen. It helps that film eschews the tendency to make its heroine a strong but unattainable fantasy version of feminine purity, seen in such characters as Nausicaa or Kiki. It’s not that those characters are inherently terrible for women (and to be honest they’re much better role-models than a lot of “strong female characters (TM)”), but they also feel like an outsider’s perspective on what girlhood should be, when in reality it can be messier, more painful, and more awkward than it is often portrayed. I’m definitely not saying that Yonebayashi and friends have insider knowledge in pre-adolescent girlhood, but Mary feels closer to the type of person someone could meet in real life. She’s fundamentally kind and not overly-rebellious (which tends to be another direction writers take these kinds of characters), but she’s not particularly talented, gets bored easily, and goes against orders sometimes. She also lies by omission in order to feel better about herself, which ultimately gets her into trouble but is so understandable from the perspective of someone who often feels unworthy of praise. The idea that there could be a world out there somewhere in which the differences that one dislikes about oneself are seen as beneficial can become intoxicating.
The film also makes some attempt at real-world commentary, its most discernible issue-of-choice being animal (and human!) experimentation, as an offshoot of the typical environmentalism that crops up in similar films. Whether this is entirely successful is up in the air; my attitude was something akin to “I see what you did there” but more from the perspective of being repulsed by the mild body-horror aspect than buying into what I thought the creators were trying to say.
Visually the film doesn’t disappoint, and manages to combine traditional character animation, lush, vivid background art, and even some CG effects into a very appealing package. It straddles the line between traditional and modern very well, making an argument for utilizing new animation techniques even while trying to maintain a mostly hand-drawn look. After watching Shirobako multiple times, it’s interesting the kind of things I tend to notice when watching animation. In this case it was the animal movement- one of the film’s climactic moments involves a herd of animals escaping from captivity, and the horde of different creatures moving across the landscape feels very natural, chaotic, and whimsical as well. The depiction of the English countryside that serves as the setting for the more mundane parts of the story recalls some of the background art from The Secret World of Arietty; the lushness of the plant life and the misty hillsides are almost a character all their own.
One aspect of the film that I really liked was the revelation that Mary’s aunt Charlotte played an important part in the story when she was a youngster, and that Mary as a descendant of that family line is in prime position to draw things to a close. Even when young women have central roles in a narrative, it’s often the case that they’re the only female in a sea of men. In this case there are important connections between Mary and Charlotte, as well as the Endor headmistress. Additionally, Mary comes to the rescue of Peter, her male companion, multiple times throughout the film, which was a refreshing surprise.
The one thing that detracts from this story, and I suspect that others may agree with me, is that the whole package feels a bit rote. Stripping away the visual trappings and the spunky main character reveals a story that’s competently formulaic but not otherwise special in any way. It’s a fairly typical “heroine’s journey” in which a young girl is forced to look inside herself and make personal improvements, all in the guise of going on a grand adventure that, once completed, brings her back again to her mundane normal life. That said, it’s the type of movie that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable watching with a child and which demonstrates an example of how to be heroic and fight for something ethical. It’s certainly more tolerable than your typical CG talking animal movie, and it doesn’t talk down to its intended audience.
The more creators there are making great movies, the better, and having graduated from Studio Ghibli I think Yonebayashi has a bright future ahead of him bringing to screen the type of anime films that have wide appeal. Mary and the Witch’s Flower is an above-average interpretation of a Western-style fairy tale that centralizes a somewhat-atypical female heroine and brings to life a magical world that might make some viewers long for the opportunity to attend a witch school. Check it out at a local film festival, or grab the disc when it’s released in May.
Pros: Mary is a spunky heroine with some realistic pre-teen flaws. The female relationships provide a good through-line to the film. The artistry is excellent.
Cons: The story is pretty average and can feel like a re-hash of old concepts.
Grade: B
