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Whispers of the Heart (1995)
You’d need to have the heart of Hitler to
resist this lyrical indulgence in sentimental love. Part nostalgia, part
love story and 100% stunning animation, writer Hayao Miyazaki
tantalising tale as directed by Yoshifumi's Kondo is about a Japanese
girl fretting about the big issues: falling in love, deciding on
a future career—and—entering a good high school. Empathising with her
priorities might require a bit of cultural relativism, but this should
be abundant in a place like Australia, surely!
Shizuku is a bright student from an
intellectual family. She ends up developing a crush on a boy who wants
to one day make violins to equal or even surpass Stradivari’s. Through
him and his wise, antiquarian grandfather—who must surely have been
modelled on Geppetto in Disney’s Pinocchio—she realises what love
might be about and how writing about it is as much technique as it is
emotion.
The unconquerable appeal of its sweetness
is that is never saccharine or overbearingly sentimental. Everything
fits together logically and formally. The little things—like the
insanely detailed city-scapes, the adorable yet iconic cat and the
magisterial use of music—combine to create a world that is fantasy
rooted in reality: the only fantasy I’m willing to embrace.
Ah yes, how could I forget the unintendedly
kitsch rendition of country music classic ‘Country Road’ into Japanese,
with its incurable mangling of Rs and Ls?—make sure to let the closing
credits keep rolling!
*My preview disc did not have a Japanese
soundtrack.
Felix Staica |
