My wife is a huge Studio Ghibli fan so it’s always a happy surprise to come across one of their films that she hasn’t watched yet. It’s always so wonderful to see these hand drawn animated films that are so full of detail today and the setting of what must be the most perfect and idyllic Japanese small town ever adds to the pleasure. The plot is too sweet for me though and the main character is so much the ideal, diligent good girl that she’s just unreal. It’s a very beautiful and pleasant film to watch but not anything to engage with seriously.
High school student Umi Matsuzaki lives in a large boarding house that her family owns with her younger siblings. Her mother is away and her father is deceased, a sailor who she remembers by raising signal flags to him everyday. In addition to being a diligent student, she cooks meals for the residents of the boarding house and does many chores. Meanwhile at school many of the boys are campaigning to preserve an old building that is used as their clubhouse called the Latin Quartier. One of the leaders, Shun Kazama, catches Umi’s attention by jumping off the top of the building as an attention-getting stunt. She later helps him stencil the school newspaper and it is evident to all that they are attracted to each other. When Umi shows Shun a photograph of her deceased father however, Shun realizes that he has the same photograph and that they may share the same real father as he was adopted by the father who raised him. He asks for an explanation from his current father, a tugboat captain, and starts avoiding Umi.
This is a startlingly beautiful film, particularly in being such a complete and detailed portrait of the town Umi lives in. From the house itself and the hill it stands on overlooking the bay, all the way down the path to the town center filled with shops and townspeople all going about their lives. It’s all lovingly handcrafted and captures a very idyllic vision of Japan in the 1960s. You can tell that the visual designers had so much fun with the shots too. You start off inside the boarding house and despite the lack of any parental figures running it, it’s the perfect picture of domestic bliss with everything in its proper place and proper meals served at the dinner table. Then you get to visit the inside of the boys’ clubhouse, all full of clutter, dust and cobwebs, housing everything from the philosophy club with the soapbox for its sole member to the crazy experiments of the chemistry club. Yet amidst the chaos and the wonderful sense that there may be something surprising hidden around every corner too is another kind of beauty. The character designs are the usual ones that Studio Ghibli creates and are kind of boring but the setting it evokes is fantastic.
The relationship between Umi and Shun is too childish to be very engaging but I suppose is a more or less accurate depiction of a high school romance. The accompanying plot of the students campaigning to save the clubhouse is worthier of praise. I found it fascinating that 80% of the students originally voted to demolish the old building so that is actually the democratic decision. The main characters however defend the building passionately and rail against the tyranny of the majority. Umi’s idea that they should clean and fix up the place while preserving its character makes for a good compromise but I still found it to be an instructive example of the values of the filmmakers and the manga this was originally based on. Also interesting is that the film touches on the Japanese victims of the Korean War, a war that Japan was not involved in, as well as some of the chaos and misery of the post-World War 2 years.
Overall this is too light and cheery a film to leave a big impression on me. I love the art and the world but the characters, the story and the themes are unremarkable. I’m actually a bit upset that the character of Umi is too perfect, a role model that would be impossible for anyone to live up to. I do know that I should catch up on the other Studio Ghibli films that I’ve missed and will start doing so.