E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

A Little (Less Than) Kin but More Than Kind: Kangurashi No Arrietty (Arrietty and the Borrowers) reviewed by Sophie Mayer “I left my childhood in the garden green”: the haunting refrain of Cecile Corbel ’s ‘Arrietty’s Song’ is first heard in the opening minutes of Studio Ghibli’s film adaptation of Mary Norton ’s The Borrowers , when the voiceover narration aligns the viewer with Sho, a young boy with a heart defect who is being sent to spend the summer with his Aunty, in the house where she and his mother grew up. From the opening, the film has a sense of melancholy loss similar to The Virgin Suicides , an unusual mood for a children’s film. The mood is borne out by the story: Sho’s illness is left unresolved at the end, and Arrietty – the Borrower whom he meets in the house – is leaving with her family. Leaving the house, and leaving Sho. In many ways, the film does everything it can to induce the viewer to want another ending: one in which Sho’s friendship with Arri...