The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

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manicsounds
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Re: The Borrower Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

#2 Post by manicsounds » Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:08 am

2 Teaser Trailers that debuted on TV last week, and an interview and performance of the theme song.

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RobertB
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Re: The Borrower Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

#3 Post by RobertB » Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:00 pm

Thanx :) I hope they let this stay on YouTube. Ghibli was quick to remove trailers for Ponyo. Just stupid if you ask me. Looks beautiful. There's a lot, in english, about the film in the news section of http://www.ghibliworld.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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manicsounds
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Re: The Borrower Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

#4 Post by manicsounds » Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:09 am

Just watched this today, and Ghibli does it again. Yet another masterpiece for them. So in short, the story is very different from the 1997 film, and other versions to say.

The film follows through Arietty's eyes through the film, from her lifestyle of being hidden from humans, her initiation with her father in going into the home and borrowing things, and when she is discovered by the teenage boy Sho, who is mostly bedridden with a weak heart.

The film is incredibly beautiful (I watched a digital projection), the sound design is the best I've heard this year, the performances are fun, wonderous, and very emotionally touching.

It's not a movie that's all happy and wondrous, there is danger, peril, and emotional goodbyes of course.

I still give the film 9 out of 10. It's one I'd like to revisit again and again.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Borrower Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

#5 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:38 am


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Fesapo
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Re: The Borrower Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)

#6 Post by Fesapo » Tue Jul 20, 2010 8:06 am

I got to see Karigurashi no Arietti this afternoon too and was also very taken with it. Not knowing Japanese very well, I was often left to simply look at the aristry, but that was more than enough to leave me with a favourable impression. After years of admiring Studio Ghibli films for, among many other things, their attention to detail, this was a film that I felt really rewarded sharp eyes. Following around itty bitty Arietti through the carefully constructed world her family has made of bits and bobs from the grandmother's house was so fun. The story was also quite touching: spare, innocent, and genuinely thrilling. I'm looking forward to seeing it again (with English subtitles, of course!).

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Bill Thompson
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Re: New Films in Production

#7 Post by Bill Thompson » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:57 pm

swo17 wrote:Also, don't forget Studio Ghibli's wonderful Arrietty, which will finally be coming to the U.S. in a couple months.
Have you seen this one? I'm interested in seeing it because I'm a Ghibli fan, but I'm also interested in why it apparently did so lackluster in Japan.

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swo17
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Re: New Films in Production

#8 Post by swo17 » Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:54 pm

Bill Thompson wrote:
swo17 wrote:Also, don't forget Studio Ghibli's wonderful Arrietty, which will finally be coming to the U.S. in a couple months.
Have you seen this one?
Yes, my daughter and I both thought it was great. Very imaginative rendering of the film's concept, and also explores a compelling theme--learning how to trust someone that could crush you under his thumb at any moment if he were ever so inclined.

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manicsounds
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Re: New Films in Production

#9 Post by manicsounds » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:16 pm

Bill Thompson wrote:I'm also interested in why it apparently did so lackluster in Japan.
Is the 9th highest grossing Japanese film of all time "Lackluster"?

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Bill Thompson
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Re: New Films in Production

#10 Post by Bill Thompson » Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:20 pm

manicsounds wrote:
Bill Thompson wrote:I'm also interested in why it apparently did so lackluster in Japan.
Is the 9th highest grossing Japanese film of all time "Lackluster"?
I was going off of what a podcast had said, but it turns out they were talking about Goro Miyazaki's latest effort, and not Arietty, my mistake.

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MichaelB
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#11 Post by MichaelB » Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:13 pm

I had to miss five minutes thanks to having to escort an annoyingly weak-bladdered daughter from the auditorium at a crucial dramatic moment (I missed virtually all the climactic scene in the forest), but this was certainly the best new film I took my kids to this past year.

Incidentally, it's worth mentioning (not least because I had to put Sight & Sound right on this!) that there are two English-language dubs: an American one with Carol Burnett and an Anglo-Irish one with Saoirse Ronan. I've only seen the latter (my kids aren't really up to subtitled Japanese just yet), but I thought it worked beautifully - there are so few obviously 'Japanese' elements in the film (though I liked the repurposing of plastic fish-shaped soy sauce dispenser) that it played entirely convincingly in English.

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manicsounds
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#12 Post by manicsounds » Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:26 am

I read that the US English is re-naming some of the characters to fit the English (just why...?) Like Sho is called "Shawn" in English, Aunt Sadako is "Aunt Jessica" (how did they come up with that one?)

I really don't get why they have to do that. And just to say, those are not the English equivalent names in the original book.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#13 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:55 pm

Goro's new film is Japan's top grossing film of 2011 (or so I just read).

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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#14 Post by jojo » Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:57 pm

Re: Names

Looks like when Ghibli signed that contract with Disney while stipulating "no cuts", it did not extend to film names and places.

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colinr0380
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#15 Post by colinr0380 » Sat May 05, 2018 12:27 pm

I finally got around to seeing this and of course it is wonderful. I loved that really detailed sense of scale to everything - in this film standing on a ledge of a cabinet in a human sized room is made to seem almost as unnervingly airily agoraphobic as looking out over the Grand Canyon (and that the drop to the floor initially looks like a bottomless chasm to Arrietty's eyes!), and it is interesting that the indoors world is treated more like that than the garden outside (after the brief appropriate size shock of the doll's house of course!), though I suppose that is full of grasses and insects more of a Borrower-appropriate size! Another great aspect to the film is the detailed way of showing how the Borrowers get around and use paths that have a built-up, much-used and practical aspect to them. Or the way that even the human sized world has little pathways around it due to all of the decorative mouldings on the wall or climbable pieces of furniture! (Perhaps that shows that 'useless' seeming artistic flourishes actually have a practical purpose to them as well!)

The thing that most struck me though was that Arrietty is not so far removed from a film like Princess Mononoke, only with the perspective turned around. It has all of the environmental aspects of a Studio Ghibli film, but here the 'human beans' are like the forest gods of Mononoke and we are often shown the sickly boy Sho from Arrietty's perspective as a kind of lumbering slow moving figure, a force of nature that may be well meaning but utterly destroys the life that the Borrowers have built up by becoming aware of their presence (and they don't get angry or want revenge, just accept it as devastating but something that they have to move on from and rebuild elsewhere). Much like the forest god in Mononoke (also sickly, with that sickness being a kind of ominous suggestion of some kind of darker future ahead. In that sense the malicious maid here is in an equivalent role of the villagers on a single-minded quest to capture or kill the spirit in Mononoke) or the natural world itself Sho often seems quite hard to read, as if he is not really aware of his tangible impact on the lives of the Borrowers, at least until it is too late to keep them a secret. He often wears a kind of 'benevolently blank' expression that could tip either way into a warm smile or a cold empty look. In some ways that makes Arrietty's relationship with Sho shockingly transgressive, like that between a person and one of the Gods of their world (she has even harnessed and ridden one to save her mother) - beings who could be cruel or kind; benign or malicious; shower with riches, or rip apart your cosy home; or not notice the little people all, just as we might not notice an insect we trample on. Perhaps the best that can be asked for (as in that perfectly judged scene between Sho and his aunt at the end) is that we provide the space for Borrowers to inhabit without ever wanting to interact with them (knowing that we never could really interact, or fully understand each other's worldview), just being glad for the idea that they could be around!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat May 26, 2018 8:55 pm, edited 8 times in total.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#16 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat May 05, 2018 1:21 pm

colin -- Have you seen Yonebayashi's When Marnie Was There yet? I liked that even more than I liked Arietty.

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colinr0380
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Re: The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010

#17 Post by colinr0380 » Sat May 05, 2018 4:01 pm

I'm afraid that I have not as yet. I'm embarrassingly far behind on my Studio Ghibli viewing, but it is in my 'to watch' pile!

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