When Marnie Was There - Studio Ghibli Delivers With Its Potential Swansong

hentropy

New member
Feb 25, 2012
737
0
0
Casual Shinji said:
It's not that, it's that those particular dream sequences give the impression that Anna has no more grip on reality. She drifts in and out with no control, implying something is either wrong inside her head or it's something supernatural. But it never explains this at the end, it just completely ignores that whole mind trip.
Again, I sorta like the concept of things being left to the imagination, versus Inception-style "explain everything to the viewer so it ties up nicely".
That being said, I thought it was fairly obvious that they were dreams with a mixture of supernatural elements like time travel. Since no one, not even Anna fully understands it, the viewer should not, either.

No, it's because Kaguya's ending had a point.

She dies regretting the opportunities she never took in life. The life that we've observed throughout the movie. You can view this in a very nihilistic light, that we'll all die filled with inevitable regret over the chances that slipped away. Or you can see the positive side, that you should make the most out of life since it will end.

I won't disagree that the ending isn't enjoyable, but that's because it's not supposed to make you feel good, quite the opposite actually.
As a fantastical folk tale it can be interpreted any number of ways, but I don't think it had a clear point that is universal to anyone. You can say they were being true to original story, but the ending was actually changed, as in the story Kaguya forgets pretty much everything and none of it mattered because now she gets to live an ageless, goddess-like life on the moon. She didn't "die" by any interpretation, and by a Buddhist point of view you could say that Kaguya was unhappy as some kind of wealthy princess and preferred to live a life devoid of Earthly connections, in which case the ending could be considered happy. In any case it was bizarre, but it was given a pass because it was an adaptation of a rather old fairy tale.

The point of Marnie is that it was a coming-of-age tale about someone having more than one type of crisis. The ending twist is at least unexpected to most, especially its target audience of young adults. You might have to identify with Anna a little bit to understand it more potently.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
19,572
4,374
118
hentropy said:
As a fantastical folk tale it can be interpreted any number of ways, but I don't think it had a clear point that is universal to anyone. You can say they were being true to original story, but the ending was actually changed, as in the story Kaguya forgets pretty much everything and none of it mattered because now she gets to live an ageless, goddess-like life on the moon. She didn't "die" by any interpretation, and by a Buddhist point of view you could say that Kaguya was unhappy as some kind of wealthy princess and preferred to live a life devoid of Earthly connections, in which case the ending could be considered happy. In any case it was bizarre, but it was given a pass because it was an adaptation of a rather old fairy tale.
There's a lot injected into the movie that wasn't in the original fairy tale. Like the wood cutter figuring that because Kaguya is a goddess she must therefore be surrounded by riches and be raised as a princess. He falsely equates divinity to gold, nobility, and earthly possessions. Or how blindly following tradition can end up hurting the ones you love even if it comes from a good place. And that aristocracy robs you of your humanity, especially if you're a woman. You see a scene where Kaguya's expressions literally get plucked from her face.

She died in the fact that all her memories are taken away -- everything that made her who she was disappears. And the way it happens shows the complete indifference of death. There's a small moment where Kaguya gets to hold her parents one last time in a manner that shows the utter desperation from both her and her parents. She tries to argue with the celestial beings how she doesn't want to go, she doesn't want to forget, but before she can even finish a sentence the cloak is placed on her and she's gone. Not even a final goodbye is granted to her, just like how in real life we don't get to say goodbye when the end comes, it just happens. And then as she disappears toward the Moon we get a shot of her as a baby, which arguably is a bit blatant, but it signifies the beginning (birth) and the end (death).
 

murrow

New member
Sep 3, 2014
72
0
0
Casual Shinji said:
Except the movie doesn't portray her as just a moody tween. The opening starts off with her stating some people just stand outside that circle of having a healthy, fulfilling social life. And the movie paints this as genuine, not as something the audience is supposed to take as the pretentious claim by an emo teenager.
That's a rather harsh way to describe a teenager having troubles fitting in. A lot of people go through hell during their teen years, and it doesn't always have to do with emo music or purple-dyed bangs. Also, the young person taking a break from normal life to do some soul-searching in the faraway country is one of the oldest tropes in the book. I feel much more inclined to take Marnie as an iteration of the latter than as a allegory of overcoming depression.

The movie than heavily implies she's slipping into somekind of delusional state of mind, likely brought on by her wanting to run away from her real life. And again, it's not like this is her just day dreaming -- she can no longer tell the difference between dreams and reality, which is a clear sign she is losing her sanity.
Or that it was all a whimsical plot device to make her come to grips with her life. This is Studio Ghibli, after all. Leaving explanations to the supernatural is well within their MO. Unlike Satoshi Kon's movies, which are much more cerebral and generally portray the escape to fantasy as a slippage of reality. I never got this neosurrealist vibe from Ghibli, and this seems no exception.

Which is why the whole grandma angle was so flat and had zero bearing on anything that was built up before. Marnie being this beautiful, likable, and high spirited girl was the perfect set-up to show that this is what Anna wished she could be. And that she was steadily losing herself in this fantasy and ignoring the real world. But then it's like 'Oh no wait, she's actually her grandma with a tragic past.' Then what was the deal with Anna hallucinating like a crazy person?!
I personally think there's some beauty in her being her grandma. Kids sometimes develop these bonds of admiration with a long-lost relative, someone they never knew, but who they heard (or imagined) to be an amazing person, with a touching and eventful life story. From Marnie, I got the impression Anna felt she wasn't alone; that someone who loved her very dearly, up to her last breath, also suffered a lot in her teens. Sometimes, knowing that you're not alone in your issues is enough to make things better. At the very least, that's a resolution commonly found in stories with the "teenage soul-searching" trope.

I'd also add that, at least for me, the similarity between Marnie and Anna's doll in the funeral and the fact that everything in her 'fantasy' looked as if they had been pulled straight from the 1930s foreshadowed the 'twist'. It was at least predictable that Marnie would turn out to be someone from her family's past.

Now, just to end with an olive branch, I also think Princess Kaguya is the superior movie by far.