My Favorite Anime Movie: Whisper of the Heart

My favorite anime movie -- and quite possibly my favorite movie period -- is Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart. It's about the most important issues in life: how to find our life's work, what love is and how we should handle the fact that sometimes our dreams are so big that they can't all be accomplished instantaneously when we are very young, no matter how hard we work at it and how determined we are.

Whisper of the Heart is the story of Shizuku Tsukishima, about to enter high school and considering dropping out to pursue a career in writing. She loves to read, but she hates school. She's facing a battery of very rigorous academic exams that are supposed to determine the future course of her life, but all she really wants to do is write a novel.

The screenplay is by Hayao Miyazaki, and I think it his his best work.

When the movie starts, it is summer vacation, and Shizuku, instead of studying for her high school placement exams, is busy checking out "fairy tales" from the library. Every book she selects turns out to have been previously checked out by someone named Seiji Amasawa.She tries to imagine what sort of person this Seiji Amasawa might be. Finally, she finds a book that hasn't been checked out by him, only to learn that the Amasawa family has donated the book to the school library.

Shizuku is a budding lyricist, and she is working on a song for her class's junior high graduation, based on John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads."

A stray cat on the train leads her to a different neighborhood and an enticing antique shop with a magical cat figurine and a grandfatherly proprietor who fixes clocks and is full of stories. This in turn leads to Seiji Amasawa himself, a boy from Shizuku's school who dreams of apprenticing under a master violin maker in Cremona, Italy.

Inspired by Seiji's dedication to his craft, Shizuku decides that she must prove herself worthy by writing a novel right away. She neglects all her studies and works night and day on her masterpiece.

The adults in this movie are as delightful as the children. Instead of pressuring Shizuku to study, as most real life parents would, they allow her to set aside her studying until her project is complete. When it is done, she takes her work to the old man in the antique shop, who sets everything aside to read it. In the end, Shizuku realizes that while she has potential as a writer, her work as it stands needs a lot of polish. She decides to stay in school.

In a similar turn of events, Seiji, who has been to Italy to interview with the master luthier, realizes he's not quite ready to become an apprentice yet. He will put off his plans until after he graduates from high school.

Seiji and Shizuku decide that they will marry ... sometime in the future. For the time being, they take a chaste bike ride into the rising sun.

What is this movie really about? Here's what Hayao Miyazaki has to say:

"To the middle-aged people who have unspeakable regrets and remorse towards their salad days, the movie should be able to deliver an inciting feeling to today's youngsters. Deep in the minds of these young people, they are assuming in great faith that they can never play the main roles in the stage of life. Indeed, they are the reflections of the old selves of the middle-aged people like us. Therefore, we hope to revive the wishes in their hearts, and reveal to them the importance of embracing their dreams."

If you ignore the odd use of English, then the true breadth of his vision comes through. "That is because, no matter how the middle-aged people try every effort to complain about the fragility of the story, criticizing it as a dream with no regard to reality - they cannot deny that the story has illustrated, in a frank and healthy manner, the youngsters' hope of meeting their partners, as well as their admiration for a pure, innocent relationship. This is exactly the true and valuable part of youth."

The relationship between Shizuku and Seiji is young love, but entirely devoid of any sexual overtones. I remember being surprised and bowled over by this aspect of the movie. They are unquestionably in love, and even committed to each other, and yet the closest they come to touching is when Shizuku leans her forehead into Seiji's back as they take a bike ride together . It is a "pure, innocent relationship," as Miyazaki describes it in his notes. "We can freely point out in a sarcastic manner that the so-called "health" is actually a feeble behaviour under protection, or an unachievable accomplishment even in an age of no obstruction. Nevertheless, why can't we try to use an even stronger force majeure to show the goodness of wholesome love?"

The language in which Miyazaki's pronouncement is couched is somewhat cryptic. One can't help but wonder what force majeure he is referring to. Is it the magic of grandfather clocks and cat figurines? Or the power of Miyazaki himself to create a benevolent universe?

(c) 2010 Aya Katz