The latest from Studio Ghibli comes with an awesome 2D hand-drawn animation that puts any 3D, pixel-heavy animation to shame. Regardless of how lifelike they try to make the majority of animated films, they are missing the point - if I wanted to watch a life-like film, I'd watch one that is actually life-like, with living and breathing actors (at least living and breathing while they were filming it). So, it is a blessing indeed that the films of Studio Ghibli have been picked up by Disney so that we can get to watch them on the biggest of screens.
Arrietty is based on Mary Norton's beloved children's book "The Borrowers". While the semi-Dickensian 1950s British setting is transferred to modern day Japan and like the previous Ghibli classics like
Kiki's Delivery Service,
Grave of the Fireflies and
Porco Rosso, there is a sense of a universal familiarity mixed with an eerie sense of an alien, idyllic world. It's as much fantasy seeped into reality as reality seeped into fantasy.
