The Borrower Arrietty
…though I am still looking forward to Porco Rosso 2. I know that it’s ‘just’ going to be a sequel and that it also might mean that Porco has indeed not turn back into a human, but then again it means that I might see Fio again, possibly my favorite animated character of all times.
Arrietty is nothing like Fio, although she, Nausicaä, San, Chihiro and all those other heroines of Ghibli films share similar traits; they are all somewhat male in their behaviour, and the only reason they are girls might be to attract male viewers. What do I know. Unfortunately Arrietty’s general cuteness does not help when parts of the plot are just so pointless, almost infuriating. I don’t even want to delve into that, but it’s highly annoying. For the first part of the film, I was trapped in the nostalgy thing but didn’t mind it. This film is so similar to Totoro that you feel let down and wonder where Ghibli’s creativity went to: a slice of life for the first part, mostly set in one old house in the middle of nowhere, main character discovers little mysterious beings, second part of the film deals with some almost irrelevant problem bringing in some drama into the story) etc. etc. Bored.
The world of the Borrowers is pretty ugly and as a slice of life, I think the film could have worked wonderfully. I don’t even mind that the relatively cheap looking production relies so heavily on our nostalgy – that is also okay. I just wished the story wasn’t so stupid, but then again, after seeing Ponyo I wasn’t so surprised about this anymore. With Chihiro, Ghibli’s best days are over, but that is also okay. There are enough animated films out there to be discovered.
Even though I haven’t seen it (yet?), I’m quite critical about Arrietty too. I hated Gedo Senki and am not too enthusiastic about Arrietty’s trailer either.
But, anyway, why didn’t you like Ponyo? Because it didn’t really have a story – which the other ghiblis (except for Totoro, which is just cuteness) do have – and because of the pretentious drama? I loved it for its style (OMG, fish from the Paleozoic?! How great?!), but of course it’s incomparable to Chihiro, Porco Rosso and the likes.
Ponyo? It had no story, the main character was mostly creepy and totally not cute at all, every single character in the show is retarded and the film was also not beautiful. It was much ado about less than nothing. Oh well…
Arrietty is definitely better than Ponyo, solely for its nostalgic style. I think Ghibli has finally gotten over its megalomania, which means that their movies are now less pretentious but unfortunately also less creative and daring.