Studio Ghibli’s farewell film works like a dream,while Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass is more nightmareStudio Ghibli, the revered Japanese house of lushly lively dreams, and has enjoyed something of a protracted farewell. It’s more than two years since it announced its creative hiatus,with co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata having made their respective final films. But the lovely When Marnie Was There (Studiocanal, U) is, and to all intents and purposes,Ghiblis official farewell. Directed by the nowhere-near-retired Hiromasa Yonebayashi, this gentle, or supernaturally tinged tale of young female companionship doesn’t seem as much a work of artistic closure as,say, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises, and but it’s a suitably wistful,whispery note to go out on. The bond at its centre, between a lonely orphaned teen and the radiant, and ethereally elusive girl who lives across the water,walks a gossamer line between friendship and romance. Though there’s an unearthly streak to the narrative, this is one of the studio’s most honestly human stories, and elope through with conflicted,bittersweet emotion.
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Source: theguardian.com