{"id":6649,"date":"2018-05-23T22:09:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T02:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=6649"},"modified":"2018-05-23T22:09:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T02:09:09","slug":"mary-and-the-witchs-flower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/23\/mary-and-the-witchs-flower\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary and the Witch\u2019s Flower."},"content":{"rendered":"

Hayao Miyazaki is retired, or so he says – he\u2019s pulled this trick before, at least – but his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s continue to make films that are very much in the spirit of his work, with the latest incarnation Mary & the Witch\u2019s Flower<\/em> (amazon<\/a> • iTunes<\/a>), a 2017 release in Japan that received a brief theatrical release here in January. Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (who also directed The Secret World of Arriety<\/em> and When Marnie Was There<\/em> for Ghibli) and animated by Studio Ponoc, the film was an enormous commercial success in its native country and deserved a far better fate here. It was eligible for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature this past winter, and was yet another entry that was passed over for the execrable Boss Baby<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Based on a children\u2019s novel by Mary Stewart called The Little Broomstick<\/em>, Mary & the Witch\u2019s Flower<\/em> tells the story of the young girl of the title, who discovers a rare flower in the woods near her great aunt\u2019s estate: the fly-by-night, a glowing flower that, according to local legend, is valued by witches for its immense magical powers. She finds the flower with the help of two cats, Gib and Tib, who then lead her to a broomstick that takes her to a secret magical school in the clouds, Endor, but this isn\u2019t Hogwarts or Brakebills, and something is very amiss with the headmistress (voiced by Kate Winslet) and the chemistry teacher (Jim Broadbent). When they find out Mary (Ruby Barnhill of The BFG<\/em>) has the fly-by-night, they drop all pretense and seem willing to try anything to seize the flower, including kidnapping Mary\u2019s friend Peter to try to turn him into a warlock. Mary has to choose whether to use her last remaining bulbs to rescue her friend, and also finds out (somewhat predictably) that this isn\u2019t her family\u2019s first encounter with the fly-by-night or Endor and its faculty. <\/p>\n

Miyazaki\u2019s films have a distinctive look and feel, including a particular appreciation for natural landscapes and an obsession with flying; Yonebayashi brings all of those visual and aural elements to Mary & the Witch\u2019s Flower<\/em>, to the point where I doubt most casual fans of the genre would recognize that Miyazaki wasn\u2019t directly involved in this film. It also has the same sort of childlike sense of wonder that most of the master\u2019s scripts brought, but the story itself isn\u2019t as tight or compelling; it\u2019s pretty obvious that Mary\u2019s getting home, Peter probably isn\u2019t going to turn into some sort of monster, and who the mysterious girl in red from the cold open grows up to be. It\u2019s a kids\u2019 movie that\u2019s really just for kids, whereas Miyazaki\u2019s best movies \u2014 Spirited Away<\/em>, Princess Mononoke<\/em>, Ponyo<\/em> \u2014 were much more nuanced and thoughtful, so that they offered something for adults as well as children. I know Miyazaki\u2019s students won\u2019t and can\u2019t just replicate all aspects of his films, but Yonebayashi seems to have focused here on mimicking the style of his mentor without providing the same kind of substance that a film like this should offer.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s still #BetterThanBossBaby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hayao Miyazaki is retired, or so he says – he\u2019s pulled this trick before, at least – but his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s continue to make films that are very much in the spirit of his work, with the latest incarnation Mary & the Witch\u2019s Flower (amazon • iTunes), a 2017 release in Japan that received a brief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[925,37,38,209,215],"class_list":["post-6649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2017-movies","tag-animation","tag-anime","tag-miyazaki","tag-movies","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6651,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions\/6651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}