Post by klep on May 24, 2021 11:39:32 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 5/24: Kiki's Delivery Service
ON THE JOB WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.Animation is uniquely suited for stories where nothing happens. It's easier to hold an audience's interest with daily routines and mundane conversations if they have moving drawings to look at, until something profound rises from what isn't happening and resonates in a way no plot can.
I formed that opinion after first watching Kiki's Delivery Service 23 years ago, and it's a big reason I've done my best to ensure everyone close to me has seen it ever since. When I pitch the movie to friends, I tell them nothing happens - a blimp goes down, but that's about it - and that it's one of the most riveting movies I've ever seen.
Like the greatest stories about nothing, Kiki's tale encompasses everything: finding your way in the world, discovering something that makes your life meaningful, making new friends, losing old ones, losing her passion for what makes your life meaningful, and regaining it again. The specifics may be fantastical, but they're rooted in universal experiences.
It helps that the film's writer/director gives each element room to breathe. As anyone who's watched one of Hayao Miyazaki's adventures knows, he can stage a fast-paced action sequence as well as Steven Spielberg or George Miller - and occasionally hints at it here, including that blimp going down - but mostly he's content to let his young heroine explore her world and enjoy (or not) the company of the people she meets at a speed slightly quicker than real life, but slow enough that you feel the significance of every interaction.
This feels like a good place to acknowledge some differences between the original and dubbed versions of the film. The dub is the less subtle version of a movie that is less than subtle to begin with, making text of subtext that I'd like to believe young viewers would pick up anyway and bastardizing Joe Hisaishi's wonderful score with additional piano interludes because I imagine the Disney executives who produced it assuming viewers needed more music to tell them how to feel.
Yet while the extra music shouldn't (and in my blu-ray copy, doesn't) exist, I have to admit I prefer the songs in the dubbed version's beginning and ending, which replace the Japanese equivalent of 1970s John Denver tracks, and to my ears the English actors, led by a then-15-year-old Kirsten Dunst as Kiki herself, bring their characters to life as well as their Japanese counterparts. The dub also features Phil Hartman's final voiceover performance as Kiki's cat, Jiji, and if you're a fan of Hartman it's worth watching for him alone.
Whichever version you see, it's hard to avoid being swept up in Kiki's journey, which sees her leaving home at 13, settling in the vaguely 1950s steampunk northern European city of Koriko, and setting to work using the skill she knows best - flying - to build a life for herself.
Like so many of us, Kiki soon discovers that just because you're good at something doesn't mean someone will pay you for it, and just because you're good at and being paid for something doesn't mean you'll always be passionate about it or that it should define your life. Because it's an animated movie, Miyazaki gets to illustrate these truths with Kiki losing, and eventually regaining, her abilities to fly and speak with Jiji*, but the real-life parallels are hard to miss.
(*Another key difference between the original and dub is the thematic implications of Kiki losing her ability to understand Jiji. In the original, it's a signal that Kiki is getting older and leaving certain aspects of her childhood - like talking to her cat - behind, while the dub turns it into a sign of depression along with her losing the ability to fly.)
Fortunately, like (hopefully) many of us, Kiki also meets plenty of new friends who are eager to help her on her way. In addition to Jiji (Rei Sakuma in the original), she's supported by Osono (Keiko Toda in the original, Tress MacNeille in the dub), a baker who hosts her delivery service and gives her a place to live; Tombo (Kappei Yamaguchi in the original, Matthew Lawrence in the dub), a boy inventor with an obvious crush on her; Ursula (Minami Takayama in the original, Janeane Garofalo in the dub), a painter who serves as an older sister figure (tellingly, Takayama also plays Kiki in the original); and the elderly Madame (Haruko Kato, Debbie Reynolds in the dub) who dispenses wisdom in exchange for help with baking. Kiki's conversations with the five, along with a few deliveries, make up the bulk of the movie.
Nothing happens. A blimp goes down, but that's about it. It's one of the most riveting movies I've ever seen.[/div]
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 5/31: Porco Rosso
WAR MOVIES WEEK!
In a first, we'll be featuring two movies by the same director in a row with Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. Be sure to join us next week for our discussion of yet another beloved masterwork from one of the greatest animators of all time. Porco Rosso is available on HBO Max.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 5/25: Rear Window
The much-delayed The Woman in the Window is finally out, so the podcast is pairing it with the Alfred Hitchcock classic that inspired it. Join us Wednesday as we discuss Rear Window, available for rent in the usual places.