© 2014 GNDHDDTK

A recurring image in director Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s When Marnie was There could almost have been pulled from director Hayao Miyazaki’s valedictory film, The Wind Rises. Both Studio Ghibli titles feature a shot in the countryside of a woman facing an easel set up on a hill. It’s not an uncommon image in museums or even the multiplex. Coming from a studio celebrated for hand-drawn animation, it’s a gentle reminder of the art of putting physical materials on canvas.

Studio Ghibli’s best-known features, like Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, created fantastical worlds of magically transformed creatures. While last year’s impressionistically drawn The Tale of Princess Kayuga was squarely in this tradition, When Marnie was There, like Miyazaki’s last film, poses a stark reality despite its supernatural theme. In the wake of Miyazaki‘s retirement, the studio is going on hiatus; we may never see another hand-drawn film from these master animators. The studio’s final artistic statement suggests that we will always have the past memorialized in its films; but it also reveals that the creative process is fraught with psychological torment.

The film is essentially a coming-of-age movie. We meet Anna (the voice of Sara Takatsuki; Hailee Steinfeld dubs the English-language version) with her drawing class sketching a playground scene; she’s sitting away from her classmates, who think there’s something wrong with her. When the teacher comes to look at what she’s drawn (which as the viewer, but not the teacher, can see, is beautiful), a child falls on the playground, and Anna falls into a kind of daze. Her adoptive parents, who have taken care of Anna since her parents died, send her off to live with relatives in a small seaside town, hoping that peace and quiet will soothe her growing nerves. But she suffers from terrible self-consciousness, hiding from relatives and potential friends and blurting out socially inappropriate things.

At low tide, Anna is intrigued by an old and seemingly deserted mansion. She crosses the marshes and meets a girl named Marnie (the voice of Kasumi Arimura; Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka dubs the English version) and strikes up a secret friendship.

Until Anna meets Marnie, the film’s tone is one of adolescent melancholy, wistful music scoring the animator’s colorful strokes in a way that gives the film a longing ache. The introduction of Marnie sends the film into familiar Ghibli territory, but their strange relationship threatens to become maudlin, a fate that the film’s second act doesn’t completely avoid.

© 2014 GNDHDDTK

Childhood trauma plays out with Anna’s mysterious new friend, and the film strikes deeper notes. If you suspect a Hitchcock connection from the name in the title, you’re right. The film references the master of the macabre in shots of an ominous stairwell in the center of a tower, or the back of a long-haired blonde. But Yonebayashi (The Secret World of Arrietty) is no mimic. He draws on Hitchcockian themes of memory, loss, and identity (as well as a suggestion of hysteria borrowed from The Innocents) in a film whose lovingly composed canvas has the studio’s unmistakable look.

As with all Studio Ghibli films, its pleasures are in details as much as plot; what other animated film would take the time to focus on a shot of fresh watermelon being cut, or of laundry waving in the breeze? When Marnie Was There isn’t another Miyazaki film, but fans of the studio’s work won’t be disappointed. On the contrary, they’ll be sorry they couldn’t put out product like this forever. Landmark E Street Cinema will be showing the movie both in English language and subtitled versions; check listings to make sure which version you’re seeing.

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When Marnie Was There
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Written by Keiko Niwa, Masashi Ando, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi; based on the novel by Joan G. Robinson.
With Sara Takatsuki, Kasumi Arimura, Nanako Matsushima (subtitled version); Hailee Steinfeld, Kiernan Shipka, John C. Reilly (English version)
Rated PG for thematic elements and smoking
Running time 103 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema.