By: Karen Pecota
24/7 MOMS Movie Editor
The U.S. Disney and Japan’s Ghibli animation studios collaborate to bring to the silver screen a full-feature animation narrative The Secret World of Arrietty. The film is based on a children’s literary series The Borrowers from the esteemed British author, Mary Norton. Her first book in the series was published in 1952 known as The Borrowers. Thereafter, she published three sequels (The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat and The Borrowers Aloft) during the next nine years. The fourth sequel The Borrowers Avenged was published thirty years later. Still revered today, Mary’s stories capture the wonderment of the imagination creating existing worlds of the miniature. Mary being a curious soul desired to explore a domain occupied by tiny beings that might live and travel underneath the blades of grass in the garden or reside under the floorboards of a country cottage. Mary’s imagination coined a new world that embraced the tiniest of little people she called The Borrowers, telling of their purpose and adventures.
The Secret World of Arrietty features the Japanese Anime (short for animation) artwork–a fascinating elegance using visuals that accent big bright eyes, big comical facial expressions, strange combinations of animation techniques for color and depth perception using very little dialogue and lots of grunt sounds to display emotion.
The culture of Japanese Anime traditionally deals with adult-oriented themes in a variety of categories such as history, classical literature, the arts, etc. and by popular demand the Anime style has captured a market geared to the younger generations with characters such as Pokémon–a children’s TV animated series based on the Pokémon video games series.
Though typical Japanese Anime has a very distinct Asian appearance, the Disney and Ghibli Studios chose to eliminate a strong recognition to a country of origin in their creation in The Secret World of Arrietty. The beauty of their artwork is the film’s focal point. The audience is mesmerized by it but Norton’s familiar storyline captures the essence of a sharp imagination that makes the duration of the film seem like only minutes have passed.
Japan created the film’s original adaptation under the direction of filmmaker Hiromasa Yonebayashi along with Japan’s renowned producers Hayao Myazaki and Keiko Niwa. The English language version attracted well-known director Gary Rydstrom, screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick and executive producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. The creative guidance under the equally talented experts in animation from both studios made it possible to generate a wide audience base attributing to the film’s success.
Synopsis:
Arrietty’s (voice of Bridget Mendler) world was not secret to her but she did understand the potential dangers that lurked behind the corners of her habitat. The known hazards were not an excuse to hinder Arrietty from adventure but a reality for her own safety as a borrower—a community in which Arrietty and her parents (voices of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) belong. Borrowers are very tiny people who live in the tiniest of places occupied by the human world—areas similar to little nooks and crannies in the walls of houses, underneath bricks in large gardens or like Arrietty’s family who live underneath the wood flooring in a large country estate. The Borrowers get their name from the way they live because they “borrow” scrap supplies such as sugar cubes or crumbs off the human table, thread scraps from sewing projects, etc. Borrowers are resourceful and reuse what humans might regard as trash or of little worth–a simple garment button human size might be used as a table top or a wall hanging in borrower size household. They turn the ordinary into essential. Their motto: take what they can use and nothing more being not a people in want and live by being resourceful.
A typical 14 year old Borrower teenager such as Arrietty is curious about the world around her and seeks independence. She often wonders off to explore the world of humans because it is so big, beautiful and exciting. Her biggest hindrance is the household cat that prowls the estate grounds hoping to one day catch her off guard. Arrietty’s adventurous spirit cannot be faulted but it causes her parents worry. The real danger of their existence is to be noticed by humans. Once noticed the humans are curious about the miniature beings. They want to be friends but do not understand that by doing so they put the life of the borrower at risk by controlling their existence.
Shawn (voice of David Henrie), a city boy, comes to live in the country estate with his Aunt and her house keeper (voice of Carol Burnett) to recover from a serious illness. Shawn’s arrival is observed by the borrower family as a new threat to their livelihood and force Arrietty and her father to make an immediate scrap supply run the first night of Shawn’s arrival. Shawn is restless and wakes by the pitter-patter of their movement. He senses Arrietty’s presence and calls out to her. Frightened Arrietty and her father flee and in the process drop all of the scraps they collected from their mission. The encounter puts Arrietty’s father on guard but she is energized to take another mission on her own to enter Shawn’s world. Arrietty’s secret world becomes more than she bargains for when her quests open the door to a friendship intended for good becomes a dangerous liaison.