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Saturday, February 13, 2016

When Marnie Was Here (2014)

We have been on a Studio Ghibli streak lately.  the animation of the outdoors is spectacular in these movies while the animation of characters is almost laughably simple, but the former far outweighs the later, and is well worth watching.
The theme here is fairly grown up for an animated audience.  The movie centers on change of location and imagery from one's past as having an impact on emotional healing. Anna is a foster child, whose parents died long ago, with all the identity crises that often come with that life situation. She’s lonely, asthmatic, and severely depressed.  She encounters Marnie, a person only she sees, when she goes to the country to visit family.  Marnie is like the subconscious that Anna has that doesn’t shy away from honest sadness, and through this friendship, Anna is on the road to healing.  She comes to realize that Marnie was not just a figment of her imagination, but a person of significance in her past.  She is then drawn into a real friendship through her fascination with a house that she sees Marnie in, and so her imaginary life melds with her real one, and her spirits are buoyed in the process.  This is a great film on many levels.

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