Whisper of the Heart is story about fate, love, and exploring your creative capabilities. The narrative handles these themes in a finely balanced and mature way, respecting all the characters. Whisper was the first directorial credit for Yoshifumi Kondo, anointed as Ghibli's future-holder, but tragically taken from the fold too early.
The film follows teenager Shizuku Tsukishima as she struggles to balance her love for fiction, studies for her high school entrance exams, and her need for adventure and romance. She's a girl with a lot going on, and so the movie has a lot going on.
Shizuku is creative and wants to find out if she has what it takes to achieve as a fantasy writer. She is overtaken by the need to create, like the Pythoness of Delphi, a deity speaks through her as she imperils both her physical and financial security.
The film is mature in that it's made clear that there is a safe and secure way to proceed (do well at exams, go to university, get hired on the "milk round"), or you can take a risk and go off the path into the forest. Certainly there is no insistence that one is a better idea than the other. In Tsukishima's case though, she feels she has to know. The location of the "World Emporium" seems to hint at the precariousness of talent, the back of the premises is perched on stilts over a precipitous drop.
The film is notable for its atmospherics, and the way the animation incorporates light and wind effects. The start of the movie particularly speaks of summer. The fantasy scenes that come later in the move were pioneering in the way they merged various animations via the use of computer stitching.
The cat of many names, Moon, Muta, and maybe Baron Humbert von Gikkingen is a fascinating character I took for a personification of fate. We never really find out whether Moon is a guide to the curious, or just a funny-looking cat. We can impute meaning to him, we can find significance in his taunting of the neighbourhood dog (fate is fickle, lazy and cruel), or maybe we are just making it up.
Another thing I liked is the movie's promoting of involvement, Seiji will only play his violin if Tsukishima will sing. So much for the society of spectacle.
Part of me will now forever be on a hill in West Tokyo with Shizuku Tsukishima. Whisper of the Heart in my book, is one of the greatest films ever made. Its sheer immersion and capture of youthful trials is outstanding.
The film follows teenager Shizuku Tsukishima as she struggles to balance her love for fiction, studies for her high school entrance exams, and her need for adventure and romance. She's a girl with a lot going on, and so the movie has a lot going on.
Shizuku is creative and wants to find out if she has what it takes to achieve as a fantasy writer. She is overtaken by the need to create, like the Pythoness of Delphi, a deity speaks through her as she imperils both her physical and financial security.
The film is mature in that it's made clear that there is a safe and secure way to proceed (do well at exams, go to university, get hired on the "milk round"), or you can take a risk and go off the path into the forest. Certainly there is no insistence that one is a better idea than the other. In Tsukishima's case though, she feels she has to know. The location of the "World Emporium" seems to hint at the precariousness of talent, the back of the premises is perched on stilts over a precipitous drop.
The film is notable for its atmospherics, and the way the animation incorporates light and wind effects. The start of the movie particularly speaks of summer. The fantasy scenes that come later in the move were pioneering in the way they merged various animations via the use of computer stitching.
The cat of many names, Moon, Muta, and maybe Baron Humbert von Gikkingen is a fascinating character I took for a personification of fate. We never really find out whether Moon is a guide to the curious, or just a funny-looking cat. We can impute meaning to him, we can find significance in his taunting of the neighbourhood dog (fate is fickle, lazy and cruel), or maybe we are just making it up.
Another thing I liked is the movie's promoting of involvement, Seiji will only play his violin if Tsukishima will sing. So much for the society of spectacle.
Part of me will now forever be on a hill in West Tokyo with Shizuku Tsukishima. Whisper of the Heart in my book, is one of the greatest films ever made. Its sheer immersion and capture of youthful trials is outstanding.