Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t recommended but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both a artform and a important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but the films like that in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the current situation concerning the COVID virus, and my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series. However, I plan to continue it even after I get vaccinated.
“Kiki’s Delivery Service” is not only the most charming movie Studio Ghibli has ever made, which anyone can tell you is a major accomplishment, considering the charm factory that is Studio Ghibli, but it might be one of the most charming films ever made. I recently rewatched the film, as it was my turn to pick for a movie club I’m in, and the first thing I said after rewatching it was that this movie is something of a layer cake. As in, it’s just layers of charm upon cham upon charm. From the first minute you see 13 year old Kiki laying in a windy field, looking up at the sky, to the last minute you see her writing a letter to her parents about her new home, the charm just piles upon each part more and more. Even telling you that ending, there is no feeling it’s a spoiler warning. This film hardly has a plot, and it somehow works. There’s a few road turns in the film, like her losing her magic at one point, and the ending, where they throw in a big event because writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, considered Japan’s Walt Disney, seemed like he figured out he forgot about the whole plot thing, getting so engrossed in the charming world of this tween witch.
Based on a beloved Japanese children’s novel, “Kiki's Delivery Service” was released in Japan in 1989, and was a success at the box office. The story of a 13 year old witch named Kiki, who decides it’s time, like her mother before her, to go off and start a life on her own. She informs her dad who had packed up for a dad/daughter camping trip and her mom she is ready to go. Already the unusual idea of a 13 year old girl picking when she is going to leave and start on her own path, is well, unusual but it’s just accepted this is the way of the witch. Her father isn’t a wizard, or anything of that sort, but her mother is a witch, and one of the unusual elements of Kiki’s universe is it seems only the female characters can have magical powers. In “Harry Potter” for example, you have wizards and witches, but in this world, it’s just witches. Also, for the most part, the world of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” is largely mundane. The movie is so slice of life, you can be forgiven if you forget this is a fantasy film.
Kiki meets a woman who runs a bakery, she gets a job delivering packages on her broom, she has a wisecracking talking cat, she meets a nerdy boy around her age who falls for her right away, she loses her magic, she regains her magic, she saves the boy, she writes a letter home. That’s literally the whole film.
This film is Miyazaki’s fourth film, and his second huge hit, after “My Neighbor Totoro”, and one would be forgiven if they forgot this was a young animator at the time and not an old master of animation. Every single frame of the film is a work of art, which is true of all of Miyazaki’s films. While Miyazaki’s films became cultural icons in Japan, “Kiki's Delivery Services” has a special place for Miyazaki’s films in the United States. After an early dub that was commissioned by an American airline to show kids on flights, which is unfortunately lost media, and impossible to find, with almost no information on a cast who provided the this version’s voices online, Disney picked up the home video rights and gave it a new American dub cast including Kristen Dunst, Jeanne Garfalo, Brad Garrett and Phil Hartman in his final role, and released it on video in 1997. It would go on to sell a million copies and become one of the bestselling videos of the year. This led to Disney picking up the rights to the rest of Studio Ghibli’s work and continuing to release their movies, including in movie theaters.
“Kiki’s Delivery Service” is a movie you should see for a ton of reasons, for both the charm it has, the writing of characters who feel real with it, and as an introduction to the world of Studio Ghibli if you don’t know it already. It’s also a master’s class in simple world building and writing. As with every Studio Ghibli film, it’s also a master’s class in animation, and even though I am suggesting one Studio Ghibli movie in this essay, I would go as far to say you can’t go wrong with any of them. However, if you want pure delight,, I suggest you get on a broom and find a copy of “Kiki’s Delivery Service”.
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