Dorothy Cummings Yuling Wang Febriyana Surjana

The Secret World of Arrietty

Introduction Our group watched The Secret World of Arrietty. This movie showed the

relationship between two kinds of groups. One is little people called

"Borrowers". The other is actual human beings. The movie we were assigned

is on the topic of endings; specifically happy endings.

Storyline Before surgery for his heart, a young boy named Sho is sent to his family's estate to rest by his Aunt. The estate is comprised of a small home, amid a sprawling green landscape. During his first moments on the grounds, Sho views the house cat named Niya looking at something in some plants. After Niya leaves, Sho catches sight of what appears to be a miniature human. This is Arrietty, the daughter of a family of 'Borrowers' that live in a dwelling under the house's floorboards. 14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items that they borrow from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.

Characterization Arrietty- A happy, positive, virtuous, and brave little girl with traditional Japanese characteristics. She cares about her family more than other things. But she is also different. She will do what she thinks is right; for example, she goes to see Sho in the garden yard. She is willing to believe Sho is different even if her family has told her that human beings are horrible. Arrietty has traditional Japanese characteristics and different values.

Sho- A quite and virtuous human boy who has heart disease. He is willing to help Arrietty when he finds Arrietty’s family. And he did, but not good as he expected. But he does help Arrietty when she asks help from him. Finally, he get encouragement from Arrietty to stay strong and brave and live through his surgery.

Characterization Hara the Babysitter- Hara is the antagonist of the story. Her suspicion and curiosity of the Borrowers leads to her attempts to find and capture them. When she finds the Borrowers’ home, she captures Arrietty’s mother and calls in a pest company to find the others. She does not see the Borrowers as miniature human beings but instead as insects to study and expose to the rest of the world.

Niya the Cat- The fat cat is an interesting characteristic in the film because it appears in the both beginning and end. Sho can find Arrietty because of the cat, and Sho can say goodbye to Arrietty because of the cat. It is a connection between the characters in the whole film. Niya also is intent on attacking Arrietty in the beginning of the film, but by the end, seems almost friendly of the borrower.

Themes

We see how the role of gender was very important in this movie. In this film, Arrietty shows her strength and heroism to the boy even though she only a little borrower girl. Arrietty is very different compared with other Disney animation. Arrietty is not a princess or someone who always needs to be saved by a prince or another hero. Differently, Arrietty goes against conventional themes of typical role model as female. She is a little borrower girl who has strength and responsible character. The Secret World of Arrietty shows the female gender as hero, which is rare in American animation in general. In the end of the movie, Arrietty makes a move with her parents, but not before she meets one last time with Shawn, who thanks her for giving him the courage to face his surgery.

One of aspect we can relate to is how, many times, children feel so lonely, scared, and confused about situations, like how Shawn faces a scary situation (he is going to have surgery), and it’s Arrietty who actually gives him confidence and changes him to be brave to face his life, rather than his family giving him the courage.

Cultural Aspects The Secret World of Arrietty was adopted by Disney, and is translated to English.

Even so, in this movie we still can see how the Japanese culture has a strong influence. For instance, the house is very Japanese type, the garden, people

customs and typical Japanese parents, who are really busy with their own business and work.

It’s also interesting how Japanese stories in animated film are more likely to feature females as strong leads, while American animated films tend to depict

females as relying on someone (usually a prince) to “save” them. This is especially intriguing, as Japanese culture generally views males as dominate over females in society. In this way, Japanese films like The Secret World of Arrietty, go

against conventional gender roles.

Technical �  Arrietty has anime style elements, including exaggerated expressions,

stylized hair with character color coding, large round eyes, and a wide range of facial emotions.

�  The filmed used computer technology instead of traditional hand painting animation.

�  Miyazaki didn’t reread the book when drawing for the film. Instead, he drew the story according to his memory.

�  The greatest challenge of creating an English-language adaptation of “The Secret World of Arrietty” was to sync the actor’s voices with the characters as they are now speaking English instead of Japanese and the English voices had to match the animation.

Original Source

The Secret World of Arrietty is based off the children’s fantasy novel The Borrowers the English author Mary Norton. The book was first published by Dent in 1952. The original storyline features a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of an English house and "borrow" from the big people in order to survive. The Secret World of Arriety also parrells The Borrowers because the movie’s ending continues the series of five novels including four sequels that feature the same family after they leave "their" house.

Video Clip

The Ending

The film ends with the goodbye atmosphere. The "happy ending" means that Arrietty and Sho acknowledge their friendship and will remember each other forever. Arrietty has confirmed Sho was friendly to little people. At the same time, Sho is encouraged by Arrietty to finish the heart surgery with courage and confidence. Therefore, from this view, I think it is a real happy ending.

On the other hand, it can be argued that this isn’t a happy ending because Arrietty and her family are still forced to flee the home they’ve always known. Arriety and Sho will also never see each other again, despite the friendship they’ve come to.

Sources

�  http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/movies/the-secret-world-of-arrietty-from-studio-ghibli.html?_r=0

�  http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/Online-Exclusives/2012/The-Secret-World-Of-Arrietty.aspx#.UKlyCOT7K5I