In an announcement made last night, we learned that Studio Ghibli will be releasing a new film during the summer of 2010, two years since their last film, Ponyo. The film will be titled, The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ) and will be based on the british tale The Borrowers, an enchanting story about miniature people living under the floorboards of a home.
Besides the fact that any new Ghibli release is newsworthy in my opinion, the real reason this story caught my attention was because I instantly recalled my parents reading this story to me as a child. Details are murky but I remember the excitement of how the little people would borrow items from their neighbors upstairs and use them in ways never thought of before. Toshio Suzuki, the producer of Ghibli movies since 1991, spoke at the press conference saying, “in a society based on mass-consumption of stuff, we thought the concept of borrowing was relevant for our times.”
It’s a well known fact that Hayao Miyazaki, as he grows old, has been passing the director baton to the up and coming. But I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed a non-Miyazaki directed Ghibli film. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be checking out the directorial debut of Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a previous animator for the company.
via Nikkei News
December 16, 2009 at 11:04 pm
With the title of the new Miyazaki movie, the Japanese will get plenty of practice with those aggravating “r’s.”
December 16, 2009 at 7:04 pm
With the title of the new Miyazaki movie, the Japanese will get plenty of practice with those aggravating “r’s.”
July 10, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Actually my favorite film from Ghibli studio is Whisper of the Heart, directed by Yoshifumi Kondo. I think he had done a perfect job of injecting delightful magic into realistic settings, it's beautifully crafted. It's very sad Kondo has passed away before he can direct more films.