whisper of heart, often mistaken to be a miyazaki film, which is actually not. Hayao Miyazaki wasn't the director on this. His collegue Kondo, who tragically passed away some years ago, was in charge of the film. It's my fav. If not to mention 'princess mononoke'.
there're some horrible translations on the western markets which read 'strain you ear', and rubbish like that. The story was adapted from a Japanese shoujo manga with exactly the same name. The original japanese title means 'if you listen closely, you'll hear the whisper of heart'. You don't just hear rain drops tapping on your window panes, or wind brushing through leaves. Your heart listens and hears the whisper of another. Dreamers that are brave enough to stand by their dreams. Everytime I rewatch it, I feel something fresher, as if all the dust is washed away by a summer afternoon shower.
storyline:
Shizuku(our female protagonist here) is a book worm. she reads like 10 books per week and she even goes to bug the libarian during school hols just to let them open up the library for her to get more books. on screen, there is shizuku, flipping over a page, eyes scanning, the same hand that flipped the page now reached out to a bag of potato chips, 2 seconds in pausing. you can tell she's reading. and all of a sudden her eyes welled up with tears. some touching storyline she just read? She's a pretty good writer too, from reading all these books you can tell she's got some talent n passion for it. She embarks on an lyrics translation project and they're going to sing their new version of 'country road', orignally by John Denver, on some ceremony. (graduation? year's ending?) The first version she came up with was hilarious, the chorus becomes 'concrete road, blah blah Tokyo, my home'. And one day she forgets her book on the bench. when she returns to fetch it, there's a boy sitting on the bench reading her book. Nothing really strange here, except that... well, when they're parting, the boy says 'hey, you know what, you really should change the lyrics' (coz the lyrics translation sheet is stuck between the book pages and boy read it)and shizuku is so pissed by the comment she storms all the way home and even tries to vent out her anger by impersonating the way the boy says the stinging line. 'you know what? you really should change the lyrics'- shizuku, saying this with lips twisted to one side, and bang!! she slams close the refrigerator door.
meanwhile, shizuku is puzzled by the name 'amasawa seiji', which appears on many many libary cards, of books that are rarely borrowed. well, you can bet that there couldn't possibly be a bigger book worm than shizuku, but maybe you're wrong. 'he read this book earlier than i do' shizuku thinks. as if an unannonunced competition, shizuku decides to borrow more and more books to read, especially those that have never been signed out before just so that her name will appear first on the book card.
the name 'amasawa seiji', that keeps appearing on libary cards
Shizuku, pissed by Seiji's rude comments on her lyrics, vented her anger by impersonating Seiji saying 'You know what? You should probably dump those lyrics'
notice how deformed her mouth is... and later on, she slammed the fridge door.
poor fridge...
one day shizuku (out of curiosity and a spurge of 'happy' hormone I think), follows a cat and comes to a magical crafts shop-'the earth shop'. 'It's like a story right out of a book' she says. A friendly old artisan owns the shop and he shows shizuku an interesting clock. When you wind it, a wooden door opens and inside the seven dawves are moving by intricate clockwork, some hammering away and some dragging a wood log. Tick, tock. The big hand strikes twelve. A melodious tone plays and a prince appears on the 'seven'. shortly, a beautiful princess appears on the 'twelve'. The prince looks at the princess yearningly, but when the second hand runs one round, it's time for the princess to go. Sadly they part.
'It's probably made by an artisan with unrequited love', the owner of the shops says.
shizuku decides to visit the lovely earth shop again next time. but she isn't so lucky though. it's closed. while she's hovering around checking Baron(a cat figurine in the shop) is sold, guess whom she meets, the boy who says 'you'd better dump your lyrics'. and guess what's going on. The boy lives there. His grandpa runs the earth shop.
and all along, this boy is amasawa seiji. amasawa seji who says 'you'd better dump your lyrics', amasawa seiji who first notices shizuku in a libary and later secretly competes with her to see who gets to read a book first, and amasawa seiji who has the big dream of being a violin maker.
i shall not give anymore spoilers.
my fav pieces from the film- country road, seiji started playing the violin and shizuku was forced to sing, later on Seiji's grandpa and some musican friends joined them, small ensemble! It was so warm n joyful. I can never forget it.
transcribed quotes, slightly adapted from Nausicca net.
Link: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mimi/script_mimi_en.txt
Downstairs
Seiji: Oh... All done?[ shizuku was looking at Baron, the cat figurine upstairs]
Shizuku: Y-yeah, thanks. Say, that... Are you by any chance making a violin?
Seiji: Eh? Yeah.
Shizuku: May I see?
Seiji: Mmm.
Seiji: It goes together this way.
Shizuku: Did you make this all yourself? By hand?
Seiji: Of course I did.
Shizuku: I can't believe it!
Seiji: The shape of the violin was set 300 years ago. Since then, the skill of the craftsman has determined how good the sound is.
Shizuku: Did you make all these too? [there're lots of violins hung from the celing top]
Seiji: You've gotta be kidding... There's a violin-making class that meets here too, you know.
Shizuku: But one of them is yours, right?
Seiji: Mmm.
Shizuku: Come on, which one.
Seiji: That one!
Shizuku: Ohhhh... This one? It's amazing, that you can make them so well. It's just like magic.
Seiji: You know, you can toss off embarassing things like that pretty often.
Shizuku: Oh? What's wrong with that? It's how I really feel.
Seiji: Anyone can make one like this. They're still no good at all.
Shizuku: Hey, I bet you play the violin.
Seiji: Well, kinda.Shizuku: Please let me hear! Even just a little.
Seiji: Hey now...
Shizuku: Please Please Pleeeease!
Seiji: Fine! But in return, you sing!
Shizuku: Huh? I-I can't! I'm tone deaf!
Seiji: That oughta be just about right.[He tunes up]
Seiji: Sing, will ya? It's the one you know.
'country road' starts to play, shizuku's uplifting voice fills up the whole room.
in which seiji plays the violin and shizuku sings 'country road', in her own lyrics
some production notes
There's one flying scene(3D) in the movie(in shizuku's fantasy world), which is done by Miyazaki. It's a highly technically challenging part as there're tens of layers stacked on top of each other. The images come from original art work by the japanese artist inoue, a fantasy genre based artist. His website http://iblard.com/english/
the violin palying scene took hundreds of reshots in oder to synchronise the finger movements and the background music.
guess who wrote shizuku's lyrics for 'country road'? miyazaki des. HAHAHAHA
fan pages
1. from Naussica
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mimi/
2. from pathea
http://www.pathea.com [under ghibli studio section]
3. from wingsee
http://www.wingsee.com/ghibli/whisper/
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