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When Marnie Was There AKA Omoide no Mânî
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - Japan - Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (17th March 2015). |
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The Film
 Anna is a young 12-year old girl under foster care being treated for depression and asthma. She is very defensive and uneager to make friends, and is also very closed off toward her foster mother. Since her condition is worsening, Anna is sent to the foster mother’s relatives living along the coast of Hokkaido for the summer. Even with the fresh air and relaxing environment, Anna still disconnects herself from the relatives and with the local kids her age. Along the coast Anna finds a large house across the water which draws her attention. She is told that the house used to be occupied by a foreign family and was abandoned years ago. She continuously dreams about the house and the occupants including a young blonde-haired girl about the same age as her. One day, Anna goes to the mysterious house by rowboat and encounters the blonde-haired girl in her dream who says her name is Marnie. The two girls immediately bond, with Anna sharing her feelings of depression and loneliness to someone openly for the first time. Marnie says she often feels the same as her parents leave for long periods and she feels the nanny who takes care of her during the parents’ absence is often abusive and uncaring. Marnie asks Anna to keep their friendship a secret, and to never mention it to anyone. Was it all a dream? Did Anna project her imagination and confuse it as reality? Was Marnie a ghost from the past? Or was it even a time traveling hole that Anna encountered? As even Anna starts questioning her own sanity, it’s revealed that a new family has just moved to town and has bought the house and they were starting renovations. When Anna goes over to the house while it is being renovated on, Sayaka, the daughter of the family that bought the house sees Anna and yells, “Are you Marnie?” The mystery deepens even further… “When Marnie Was There” was released in Japan during the summer of 2014 theatrically with the usual heavy advertising from Studio Ghibli. Adapted from the 1967 novel by Joan G. Robinson, director Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s second film as director met with very good critical praise, and was nominated for the Best Animation Film award by the Japanese Academy. But the film failed to connect with audiences. The film grossed about a quarter of what “The Wind Rises” did the year before and grossed about a third of what Yonebayashi’s previous film “The Secret World of Arrietty” did. The main character Anna was not like previous Ghibli female characters. Chihiro from “Spirited Away”, Mei and Satsuki from “My Neighbor Totoro”, or Kiki from “Kiki’s Delivery Service” were young girls of innocence learning to grow up in their world. People immediately connected with them, girls and boys as well as adults alike. Instead, Anna is a depressed young girl alienating herself from everyone, and sorry to say but incredibly bitchy by putting up a barrier toward anyone around her. It’s very hard to connect yourself with a protagonist who doesn’t want to connect at all. The protagonist who has health issues that goes to the countryside to live with relatives made an easy comparison to Sho, the boy from “The Secret World of Arrietty” who had heart problems and was prepping for surgery. But with Sho’s character, he was one that wanted friends, wanted a normal life, and wanted to go outside, rather than wanting to be closed off and isolated like Anna. Another large problem in the case of marketing was the merchandising. Studio Ghibli makes a killing on merchandising of their characters, but their last 4 movies or so had no big merchandising goods to speak of, and no one was begging for “Marnie” goods before or after the film was released. But there are still a great number of memorable sub characters, such as Toichi the quiet man with the rowboat, Sayaka the curious girl very reminiscent of Mei from “Totoro”, the slightly nosy yet friendly Nobuko, and Hisako the painter who also shares a special connection to the mysterious house. Although not an audience favorite, critics were more impressed. It received very positive reviews commenting on the mystery and the emotional buildup of the characters as well as the more serious tone the film. The mystery of Marnie and the house is revealed little by little, similar in a way the other famous "Marnie" movie by Alfred Hitchcock which this story has no relation to. It is not revealed until much later what really happened to Marnie. There are some extremely heartbreaking and even disturbing parts to the story, especially with the scene at the creepy silo. Director Yonebayashi has crafted together a very exquisite mystery film, along with some fantasy, horror, and like almost all Studio Ghilbi films, having young main characters learning to grow up but not losing the sense of childhood.
Video
The 1.85:1 1080p image is perfect. Colors are vibrant and details are gorgeous, like looking at paintings. The transfer is directly from the digital source so there are no film grain or film artifacts to speak of. As with almost all the Studio Ghibli Japanese Blu-rays, this is also with MGVC, “Master Grade Video Coding”, a proprietary encoding method that allows for optional 36-bit color output on select Panasonic Blu-ray Players. Non-MGVC players can still play back the disc without problems.
Audio
There are three options for audio for the main feature: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 Japanese LPCM 2.0 stereo Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.0 The lossless 5.0 track sounds great. Dialogue is mostly centered, while surrounds are used for music, incidental music and sound effects are well as for Anna’s narration. As Studio Ghibli fans know, they take great care with their soundtracks. Minute details like the sound of insects, kitchen utilities, the rain, and the wind are all clear and crisp. The closing theme song “Fine on the Outside” by Pricilla Ahn also sounds gorgeous, a very fitting song for the story’s theme. There are three subtitle options for the main feature: Optional English, Japanese, Mandarin (Simplified) subtitles. The English subtitles are white, and have no grammar or spelling errors. Something that Studio Ghibli and quite a few other studios do that is a bit annoying: The movie starts off immediately without going to the menu screen, and defaults to the 2.0 stereo track. I do want to see the movie the first time I put the disc in, but subsequent times I would want to watch the bonus features, or change the audio or subtitle options next time. It's like a restaurant serving you food before you are even given a menu to see what's available.
Extras
Complete Storyboards Like all prior Japanese Studio Ghibli releases, the complete storyboards are available, in full-frame 1080p. This is not an alternate angle so it cannot be clicked back and forth to the main feature. Voice Recording Script This feature is on all Japanese Studio Ghibli Blu-rays. Viewers can see every page of the Japanese voice recording script, and immediately click to that particular scene. NTV News Special: Zero Culture Spinoff - “The Studio Ghibli That We Don't Know: The Making of When Marnie Was There” (42:25) This TV special chronicles the 18 months of production of “When Marnie Was There”. From Yonebayashi’s big challenge making a feature film without the help of Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata for the first time, the art direction by Yohei Taneda and his previous work with Shunji Iwai and Quentin Tarantino on live action films in the past, the character design choices, the background art and color palate choices, and the musical score. It ends on the poster design choice arguments and finally the premiere in Sapporo, Japan. In Japanese without subtitles "When Marnie Was There x Yohei Taneda Exhibition" featurette (17:11) From July to September 2014 at the Edo Tokyo Museum, an exhibition for “When Marnie Was There” was held. The featurette walks through the exhibition, looking at miniatures created especially for the exhibit, storyboard artwork displays, backgrounds, and a recreation of Marnie’s room, the forest where Marnie went mushroom picking, as well as the traumatizing silo. It is narrated and also includes an audio interview by art director Yohei Tandeda. In Japanese without subtitles Trailers (with Play All function) (4:47) - Theatrical Trailer 1 (1:59) - Theatrical Trailer 2 (2:48) In Japanese Dolby Digital 5.0 without subtitles TV Spots (with Play All function) (2:02) - TV Spot A (0:23) - TV Spot B (0:22) - TV Spot C (0:37) - TV Spot D (0:22) - TV Spot E (0:22) In Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo without subtitles Bonus Trailers - "The Wind Rises" Blu-ray and DVD (4:12) - "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" Blu-ray and DVD / "Isao Takahata and His Tale of the Princess Kaguya: The Legend of 933 Days" Blu-ray and DVD / "Kingdom of Dreams and Madness" Blu-ray and DVD (7:07) In Japanese without subtitles One thing that seemed to be sorely missing from the extras was any information or thoughts about the original novel it was based on. It has been stated that it is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s favorites, but I wish there had been a little more background on differences between the original story and the film and the difficulty with bringing it to screen.
Packaging
The Japanese Studio Ghibli releases are quite beautiful with the silhouettes of characters against a simple one color background. For "When Marnie Was There", the choice of dark blue, similar to the color of the shawl that Anna is given by Marnie to sneak in the house. The case is a magnetic digipak case, with a 12-page booklet inside with credits, poster artwork, and technical information in Japanese.
Overall
Although at first a difficult film to get into, by the end you might be bawling in tears. It’s a very emotional and very beautiful journey. Because of the financial difficulty this film and "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" took, Studio Ghibli has stated that “When Marnie Was There” may be their last full length feature. Their next large project is a television series produced by Goro Miyazaki, and they still curate animation and art in Japan. But if this really were to be the last animated feature from Studio Ghibli, the animation world will surely have a major hole that would be nearly impossible to fill.
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