It’s always nice to know that some people can still tell a good ghost story with a straight face, not because it’s spooky but because it pushes our sympathies beyond the realm of the living, and makes us think about the truth of all the dead in our lives whose stories have been consigned to oblivion. Why are the ghosts here? So their stories can finally be told? To find closure to the troubling moments in their lives, or to help others in theirs? Or are they figments of imagination that amuse and teach the living in a personified way? These questions are less important than the impact their incorporeal forms leave on us at the end of the day, as we wonder what impact we may have had on them.
When Marnie Was There takes exactly this approach, and while many aspects of the execution are clumsy or unfortunately clichéd, the emotional bedrock on which the story stands is firm. We first meet the living member of the story, a weak asthmatic girl named Anna who we see sketching a playground scene in beautiful detail, but who begins to withdraw and panic as her teacher asks for a glimpse. Her asthma and anxiety quickly become apparent through her internal monologues, the concerns of her adopted mother, and the chatter of her classmates. No sooner does this become clear when she is sent off to the countryside to live with her aunt and uncle for the summer, on the premise that “the air is cleaner and life is more relaxed”. Okay, something needed to get her out of Sapporo to the sticks, and so for however contrived the motivations are, we can roll with it as the setup of her story of recovery. Soon into her vacation her anxiety bubbles over and alienates her even from her new community, leaving her to sketch on the bank of a lake in silence day after day.
Across the lake is a splendid abandoned house, and as Anna goes to investigate we meet the ghost, a young sheltered girl named Marnie, with blonde flowing hair and a bright blue dress, identical to a doll Anna held in one shot in the early scenes in the movie. Their personalities are both pulled together magnetically, and while our image of the shy introverted Anna falls a bit short of their instant closeness and devotion to one another, the kind understanding way in which Marnie treats their friendship contrasted with the moments of distance between Anna and the others around town are convincing enough. They both need a friend, a friend they keep secret from the rest of the world, and they quickly learn about the way their family circumstances have trapped them in a rut they perceive as inescapable. Anna’s adoption has led her to deeply distrust others, while Marnie is a bird in a guilded cage, complete with maids who mistreat her for their own amusement.
Slowly Anna begins to dominate their relationship as she searches to ways to affirm their commitment to one another, but as Anna begins to pass out during their meetings and forget about Marnie, and as Marnie disappears for weeks on end, Anna and the other members of the town begin to nucleate together around the mysterious Marnie, and their paths diverge. In one fantastic sequence that signals the coming end of their time together, Anna goes across the lake to meet Marnie, and instead is greeted by a loud elementary-school girl with brown pigtails and horn-rimmed glasses. She invites Anna in to talk about Marnie, and they go in to the house through the front door on the other side that we have never seen yet. The front door is adjacent to a road leading directly into town, and suddenly between the road and the workers renovating the front entrance for the sake of the new occupants of the house, all the magic and mystique of this forgotten relic is completely lost. By the time we hear the true tale of Marnie the human, Anna has long since been disillusioned to the whole affair.
The end has a mix of stilted dialogue and truly heartfelt messages that affirm their bonds, just as Anna boards the train and leaves for the real world once again. Apparently the clean air also did wonders, as we never see her asthma nor her inhaler after the first 10 minutes of the movie, a bothersome oversight. Her clothing also begins to change; costume design is well done throughout the movie, with Anna dressing early on in a well-composed outfit composed of a black shirt with a wide collar and white straps during her public outings, complimented by her generic and comfortable-looking hoodie she wears when she is alone. As the last scenes come we see the role of these two distinct outfits switch, a physical manifestation of her growing comfort for the world.
When Marnie Was There is adapted from a British young adults novel of the same name, and I would be fascinated to see the differences between the original version and this movie, which is laced with simple Japanese aesthetics and curiosity of Western culture. It is also interesting to see this movie done by Studio Ghibli, but not directed by Miyazaki Hayao, a devotee of the original novel. The film was done by Yonebayashi Hiromasa, who as of yet has only directed The Secret World of Arrietty but has done animation for many of the recent Studio Ghibli movies. His aesthetic taste, from color palate to backgrounds to shot composition, speaks very highly to his animation abilities, and his choice of when to not use music is an incredible compliment to the art, although I cannot help but feel like he struggles to translate his well thought-out themes and story goals in a well-flowing and natural way.
He did make many good choices though, from the choice to not explain the mechanics of Marnie as a ghost to deliberately showing Anna on the train back to Sapporo. The former allows us to experience When Marnie Was There as a character in a ghost story rather than a mechanic in a supernatural story, while the latter confirms that this summer is an experience stolen out of time rather than the new reality. The movie is satisfying, and while Yonebayashi is still maturing I am left excited for the next experience he has in store for us.