Mary and the Witch’s Flower

Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2017) isn’t quite as classic as the other movies I’ve watched for this blog so far, but I wanted to check it out because a friend recommended it to me. Besides, I’m trying to maintain good variety of what I’m watching on a week-to-week basis, and this was a nice wholesome experience for the week after Watchmen.

The movie is a Japanese anime film based on a 1971 British novel called The Little Broomstick and it’s about a girl, Mary Smith, living in the English countryside. She discovers a magical flower which gives her the power to become a witch for a night, and rides the previously eponymous broomstick to a magical college. Since it’s a relatively recent movie, I won’t talk give away too much of the plot beyond that.

The movie was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a former animator and director for Studio Ghibli. Mary and the Witch’s Flower is the first movie he directed after establishing his own studio, Studio Ponoc. His history with Ghibli was part of what drew me to this movie, but I wanted to appreciate it on its own merits

Overall, the viewing experience was very pleasant and enjoyable. The storyline was straightforward and easy to follow, with a couple of twists that are properly foreshadowed. The visuals themselves were soothing and some of the characters and scenes seemed to pay homage to classic Ghibli movies like Spirited Away.

One aspect of the movie that bothered me a little was how barren the cast felt — beyond the important character, there were very few background and side characters shown throughout the entire movie, and in the scenes that did include background characters, they were hooded and mostly faceless. I don’t know if this was a decision made for stylistic, budget, or time reasons, but the sense of discomfort I felt helped me appreciate how important background characters are for bringing a setting to life.

The work required for setting up background and side characters can feel very unrewarding due to how little they contribute to the actual story, but outside of stage plays I think their absence really feels conspicuous. Of course that doesn’t apply in locations that are expected to be deserted or mostly deserted, but seeing towns and schools that are virtually empty is jarring.

Just one  more takeaway from this movie. One of my personal rules for creative writing is that a protagonist’s problem should never be boredom, because that’s almost always a symptom of a boring character. If there needs to be conflict because the character is stuck in a house, there can be plenty of other reasons why they need to get out. They’re really passionate about something and they want to go do that thing. Or they’re lacking something and they need to go get it. Or they really don’t have anything better to do, but they’re too stressed or worried about something important to be bored.

In the beginning of this movie, Mary complains about boredom. To be fair, young children being bored is more acceptable because realistically, no matter how interesting or exciting their life might be, they’ll probably still complain about boredom. So I don’t hold Mary’s boredom against her or the movie, but I still believe that if at all possible, boredom is not the way to go.