Ahn explained on her blog that she wrote the song long before, inspired by her feelings as a teenager. The score is complemented by вЂњFine On The Outside,вЂќ sung by Georgia singer Priscilla Ahn in English on both Japanese and dubbed versions. He supplies MarnieвЂ™s beautiful, sensitive music, quite in keeping with GhibliвЂ™s style, if more Western-sounding than usual. Takatsugu Muramatsu is another outsider to anime. Arimura can be seen in the recent live-action version of Erased, a time-travel thriller. In the Japanese version, the roles were taken by Sara Takatsuki and Kasumi Arimura, both actresses from live-action. Created by GKIDS, itвЂ™s one of the very best Ghibli dubs, featuring Hailee Steinfeld from the Coen Western True Grit as Anna, and Kiernan Shipka, Sally in Mad Men, as Marnie. If you watch the English-dubbed film, then youвЂ™re in for a treat. ItвЂ™s hard to attribute shots to artists with certainty, but the Sakugabooru blog attributes this Marnie shot to Tanaka, this shot to Letter to Momo director Hiroyuki Okiura and this sensitive moment to Takeshi Inamura, who was Associate Supervising Animator on Marnie. MarnieвЂ™s artists include old hands like Shinji Otsuka, who animated such memorable scenes as this one from Tokyo Godfathers Megumi Kagawa, who was AndoвЂ™s fellow supervising animator on Spirited Away and legendary woman animator Atsuko Tanaka, whose career goes back to Castle of Cagliostro. Not that Ando was responsible for AnnaвЂ™s animation alone. Not surprisingly, Anna is MarnieвЂ™s best character, with many subtle changes and nuances in expression вЂ“ for example, when she blurts an insult at another girl, then realises what sheвЂ™s done. MarnieвЂ™s director Hiromasa Yonebayashi praised AndoвЂ™s depiction of girls with вЂњmurky, painfulвЂќ emotions. On Marnie, he took those roles again, as well as co-writing the script. Before Marnie, he was a supervising animator on Spirited Away, and later animation director and character designer on A Letter to Momo (by Production I.G). This blog has already highlighted one of MarnieвЂ™s artists, Masashi Ando, who specialises in creating troubled girls.

As with Pixar, GhibliвЂ™s protagonists get sadder and more reluctant as the studio grows older. But whereas the cheery, outdoing, can-do-anything Kiki stood for twentieth-century Ghibli, the troubled Anna in Marnie is nearer sulky Chihiro in Spirited Away. Like Kiki, Marnie shatters the Bechdel test most of MarnieвЂ™s characters are female. If you want to put Marnie into a Ghibli context, you could see it as expanding the scenes in KikiвЂ™s Delivery Service with two more girlfriends, Kiki and Ursula. In Marnie, thereвЂ™s little Disgust or Fear, a passionate yet muted Anger, a great deal of Sadness, and вЂ“ occasionally вЂ“ intense Joy.

Some reviewers found this approach muddled, as if thereвЂ™s no place for ambiguity in a family film! ItвЂ™s intriguing to watch Marnie in tandem with Inside Out, PixarвЂ™s treatment of a girlвЂ™s mind. It has echoes of the films of Satoshi Kon ( Perfect Blue), with scene transitions which leave you wondering if youвЂ™re watching reality, a dream, or reality viewed by a dreamer. ItвЂ™s like theyвЂ™ve known each other foreverвЂ¦ДЄs a film, Marnie has suggestions of a ghost story and a time-slip tale, though it may be both or neither. From the girlsвЂ™ first meeting at a moonlit mansion, when Marnie smiles down on an awed Anna like an angel in white, their friendship is charming, joyful and mysterious. Accept it on those terms, and itвЂ™s wonderful. This is a small film, closer to Arrietty (by Marnie director Hiromasa Yonebayashi) or Poppy Hill than to Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. Marnie sees Studio Ghibli working in miniature. In the new surroundings, Anna finds a friend a jovial, beautiful girl called Marnie, who lives in a fine house amid marsh and mist. As the film opens, sheвЂ™s sent away to a coastal town for recuperation вЂ“ both for her asthma, and because of her foster mumвЂ™s concerns that she never seems happy. Marnie tells the story of a solitary, withdrawn, rather boyish-looking girl called Anna. When Marnie Was There, released in cinemas on 10th June through Studio Canal, may be the last feature film made at the worldвЂ™s most famous anime studio, Ghibli.

When marnie was there house