TIFF’s Spirited Away: The Films of Studio Ghibli Review: Whisper of the Heart (1995)

Cast: Youko Honna, Kazuo Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana
Director: Yoshifumi Kondô
Country: Japan
Genre: Animation | Adventure | Family | Drama | Romance

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s Spirited Away: The Films of Studio Ghibli which runs from December 12th to December 31st at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.

Take Me Home, Country Roads acts as a gentle lullaby for all of the hustlers and bustlers of Tokyo as they live through their career-centric lives without being afforded the time to properly dream. Finding a soulmate in a tangled web of concrete and misplaced priorities is a tricky proposition for the aimless dreamers of the world as entrance examinations for the next phase of schooling take precedence over Shizuku Tsukishima and Seiji Amasawa’s burgeoning dreams of becoming a writer and violin maker respectively. They share similar passions and literary obsessions, but anything that detracts from the objective path laid before them by parents and instructors is seen as an unnecessary distraction. They sing a different kind of country blues in a land covered by concrete, but the wistful spirit of the dreamer is still quite alive in the crisscrossing power lines and unending sea of concrete that constitute Tokyo on the unavoidable precipice of modernization.

Sunlight breaks through the leaves of trees and the obfuscating obstacles of apartments filled with the accoutrements of domestication create miracles of light that dance on the bodies of Whisper of the Heart’s beautiful dreamers as they walk through broken light that brings dimension to their animated features.

Sunlight breaks through the leaves of trees and the obfuscating obstacles of apartments filled with the accoutrements of domestication create miracles of light that dance on the bodies of Whisper of the Heart’s beautiful dreamers as they walk through broken light that brings dimension to their animated features. Laundry drifts lazily in the afternoon breeze in visual homage to Ozu that inconspicuously locks the characters in their domesticated environments, both blocking the view of the burgeoning city while gracing the characters with light and shadows that ebbs and flows with the irresolute whims of a gentle breeze. Grit and stains caress careworn apartment complexes in visual flourishes that reveal the artist’s perception of the world while building a multifaceted animation technique that possesses the power to capture the real and fantastic simultaneously.

Shizuku follows a mysterious lazy cat through an urban rabbit hole littered by American Coke cans and cigarette butts. We discover the sly agenda of the stray cat that routinely travels to rich neighborhoods to torment the upper-classed dog population. Shizuku emerges from the other side of the rabbit hole into a brighter Tokyo filled with wonder and mystery and finds an antique shop with a mysterious owner who illuminates the bittersweet nature of fairy-tale worlds with an immaculate royal grandfather clock. The tender old man encourages Shizuku to follow her dreams of becoming a writer, and his unique antique shop holds countless mysteries and a strange cat figure affectionately referred to as “Baron” with sad, expressive eyes (who would later “return” in Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns). The bittersweet luminescence and ephemeral miracles of reflected light behind Baron’s quietly dignified eyes would open worlds of imagination to Shizuku, and she would use the unassuming mysteries of the antique shop to create magical worlds through her new obsessive desire to write.

Reluctantly progressive parents would allow Shizuku to follow her dreams at the expense of the false urgencies and misplaced priorities that constitute daily life, but the dreamer’s soul requires constant honing and nurturing to allow the inner light to shine with the kaleidoscopic brilliance of rare geodes.

It would take time and constant practice to polish the inner-gems of our wayward young dreamers, and an embrace of the hand could signal the end of their relationship depending on the successes of their dreams. It is the bittersweet love borne of fairy-tales as the successful fruition of their burgeoning relationship would signify the death of dreams for the comforting embrace of domestication, but neither is really prepared for life, love, or dreams in their inexperienced lives. Reluctantly progressive parents would allow Shizuku to follow her dreams at the expense of the false urgencies and misplaced priorities that constitute daily life, but the dreamer’s soul requires constant honing and nurturing to allow the inner light to shine with the kaleidoscopic brilliance of rare geodes.

Whisper of the Heart is a rare gem that lives in the real world while studying the hearts and souls of its inexperienced dreamers that look upon the world with daring and beautiful contrarian views. It isn’t until the young couple learns to share both their dreams and the burdens of daily life that a meaningful connection begins to emerge. Together they share a visage from above the misty morning of Tokyo as the first light of daybreak spills onto the city with hues of precious gold. It’s the beginning of a new day and the birth of a new love between two beautiful dreamers, the same bittersweet fairy-tale that has been recounted countless times as these two lovers venture out into the turbid uncertainties of life hand in hand with nothing but shared love and an impractical wealth of spirit to guide them.

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Matthew Blevins

Director of Home Entertainment & Sr. Staff Film Critic

Behind me you see the empty bookshelves that my obsession with film has caused. Film teaches me most of the important concepts of life, such as cynicism, beauty, ugliness, subversion of societal norms, and what it is to be a tortured member of humanity. My passion for the medium is an important part of who I am as I stumble through existence in a desperate and frantic search for objective truths.

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