Kiki's Delivery Service
Oct. 9th, 2005 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished watching Kiki's Delivery Service directed by the Japanese director whose name I can't spell, but he also did Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.
Lovely animated film. Made me cry and smile. It's the story of an apprentice witch who leaves her country village at the age of 13 to learn her craft. It's traditional for witchs to leave home at thirteen (odd age choice - wonder if this a cultural thing? For women to leave home at adolescence? It is when you become a woman normally - ie.menstruation starts for most of us. Sorry, tangent.) The goal to obtain experience elsewhere. She travels to the big city with her black cat and her broomstick and sets up a delivery service. Along the way she learns that the only way one can succeed in life is if one believes in oneself. That her magic comes from her faith in herself. This theme reminded me a great deal of the film Serenity, where in one scene a character tells another character - "You need to have belief", and "Why do you always think whenever I mention belief, I'm talking of God?". A theme echoed again in this week's Lost, when Lock tells Jack that sometimes all is needed is a leap of faith.
The other theme in the movie - was the feeling of being disconnected from people, of being an outsider, dressed wrong, awkward, rejected. The movie handles the topic in a realistic and innovative manner, which spoke to me as well as revealed things to me about myself and my own life. I think the degree that we enjoy or connect to something has a great deal to do with how closely it relates to what we are feeling and going through at the moment we experience it, whether that thing be a book, an internet post, a film, a piece of artwork, or a piece of music. It also I think relates to how we respond to it. The themes in this film hit me where I live. Whether or not I'd love this little movie two weeks from now or feel the same way about it a year from now, I could not tell you.
In the film, Kiki loses faith in herself when she senses that she has been rejected by peers and those around her. She does not see the people that care about her. She does not see how they respect her or admire her or what she does for them. All she sees are the girls who tease her. All she sees is that she is alone. As a result she loses faith in her magic and her ability to fly. She can't talk to her cat. She can't do her deliveries.
Along comes a female artist she met a few weeks back in the forest. The artist tracks her down and asks if Kiki would be willing to pose for her. That she thinks Kiki is very attractive and has an interesting face. Kiki agrees somewhat overwhelmed and flattered.
At the artist's hut, Kiki tells the artist how she lost her powers and how she fears she won't regain them. "They were all I had," she tells her. "I'm nothing without my ability to fly."
The artist tells Kiki that a few years ago she lost her ability to paint. She'd done nothing but paint for years and years and years. Loved to paint growing up. Painted constantly. Lived for it. Then one day, whammo, she couldn't paint any more. Her mind was a blank. Nothing came. And she feared it was lost to her. But what she'd lost was her desire, her faith in who she was. It took a while, she took a break, and finally her faith came back to her and she was able to paint again. She had to reconnect to herself. Regain her faith.
Kiki similarly has to regain her faith and she does, finally through realizing how she has connected to others through her art and through just being Kiki.
I completely understood this - for I too have feared losing an ability that I loved. My ability to weave a story of my own creation. To write. For three years I couldn't. I drew a blank. Now, I'm 95 pages into a novel, which may or may not be published, but that's not the point, really. It's getting written, I'm creating something again bit by bit. Word by word. And I'm doing pottery. Doing art. Perhaps I'll try to draw again, something else I fear I've lost. Like Kiki, I lost faith and have felt disconnected. I see the rejection not the applause.
Or misperceive the reactions or lack thereof as rejection of me.
Kiki in the film would often reject someone first - the boy Toben and his friends. Shut them out. She found the adults easier than the peers. Those whose acceptance she wanted, she feared, and to protect herself, shut them out or rejected them or left the scene. A common theme we see in drama possibly because it is such a human reaction. Not neccessarily a helpful one. And by pulling away, she dies a bit inside and loses her faith. She learns that she can't take what others think of her or what she perceives they think of her to heart - that she must do what she loves regardless, follow her own heart.
I recommend the film. It's on DVD, available via netflix. I could not find it in Blockbusters. Not very long.
The only extra worth watching is behind the microphone, where they show how dubbing is done, outside of that, nothing worth noting.
Lovely animated film. Made me cry and smile. It's the story of an apprentice witch who leaves her country village at the age of 13 to learn her craft. It's traditional for witchs to leave home at thirteen (odd age choice - wonder if this a cultural thing? For women to leave home at adolescence? It is when you become a woman normally - ie.menstruation starts for most of us. Sorry, tangent.) The goal to obtain experience elsewhere. She travels to the big city with her black cat and her broomstick and sets up a delivery service. Along the way she learns that the only way one can succeed in life is if one believes in oneself. That her magic comes from her faith in herself. This theme reminded me a great deal of the film Serenity, where in one scene a character tells another character - "You need to have belief", and "Why do you always think whenever I mention belief, I'm talking of God?". A theme echoed again in this week's Lost, when Lock tells Jack that sometimes all is needed is a leap of faith.
The other theme in the movie - was the feeling of being disconnected from people, of being an outsider, dressed wrong, awkward, rejected. The movie handles the topic in a realistic and innovative manner, which spoke to me as well as revealed things to me about myself and my own life. I think the degree that we enjoy or connect to something has a great deal to do with how closely it relates to what we are feeling and going through at the moment we experience it, whether that thing be a book, an internet post, a film, a piece of artwork, or a piece of music. It also I think relates to how we respond to it. The themes in this film hit me where I live. Whether or not I'd love this little movie two weeks from now or feel the same way about it a year from now, I could not tell you.
In the film, Kiki loses faith in herself when she senses that she has been rejected by peers and those around her. She does not see the people that care about her. She does not see how they respect her or admire her or what she does for them. All she sees are the girls who tease her. All she sees is that she is alone. As a result she loses faith in her magic and her ability to fly. She can't talk to her cat. She can't do her deliveries.
Along comes a female artist she met a few weeks back in the forest. The artist tracks her down and asks if Kiki would be willing to pose for her. That she thinks Kiki is very attractive and has an interesting face. Kiki agrees somewhat overwhelmed and flattered.
At the artist's hut, Kiki tells the artist how she lost her powers and how she fears she won't regain them. "They were all I had," she tells her. "I'm nothing without my ability to fly."
The artist tells Kiki that a few years ago she lost her ability to paint. She'd done nothing but paint for years and years and years. Loved to paint growing up. Painted constantly. Lived for it. Then one day, whammo, she couldn't paint any more. Her mind was a blank. Nothing came. And she feared it was lost to her. But what she'd lost was her desire, her faith in who she was. It took a while, she took a break, and finally her faith came back to her and she was able to paint again. She had to reconnect to herself. Regain her faith.
Kiki similarly has to regain her faith and she does, finally through realizing how she has connected to others through her art and through just being Kiki.
I completely understood this - for I too have feared losing an ability that I loved. My ability to weave a story of my own creation. To write. For three years I couldn't. I drew a blank. Now, I'm 95 pages into a novel, which may or may not be published, but that's not the point, really. It's getting written, I'm creating something again bit by bit. Word by word. And I'm doing pottery. Doing art. Perhaps I'll try to draw again, something else I fear I've lost. Like Kiki, I lost faith and have felt disconnected. I see the rejection not the applause.
Or misperceive the reactions or lack thereof as rejection of me.
Kiki in the film would often reject someone first - the boy Toben and his friends. Shut them out. She found the adults easier than the peers. Those whose acceptance she wanted, she feared, and to protect herself, shut them out or rejected them or left the scene. A common theme we see in drama possibly because it is such a human reaction. Not neccessarily a helpful one. And by pulling away, she dies a bit inside and loses her faith. She learns that she can't take what others think of her or what she perceives they think of her to heart - that she must do what she loves regardless, follow her own heart.
I recommend the film. It's on DVD, available via netflix. I could not find it in Blockbusters. Not very long.
The only extra worth watching is behind the microphone, where they show how dubbing is done, outside of that, nothing worth noting.