Whisper of the Heart

Rather than the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-style whimsy promised by a theatrical release poster that depicts our teenage heroine ascending into the sky, a dandified feline on her arm, Whisper of the Heart is instead locked, with its feet firmly on the ground. Although dreamy landscapes untroubled by gravity do (briefly) appear in Yoshifumi Kondo's film, for the most part Whisper exists in packed and cluttered urban spaces. These environments do slowly take on a picturesque quality though, partially thanks to the beautifully painted medium presenting them but also the ups and downs experienced by the lovebird protagonists. Nostalgic in terms of depicting a bygone emotional bandwidth for an older viewer rather than any specific kind of toy. Whisper then deals in contrasts: the physical restraint of living in a box room, trapped under piles of books, or the freedom felt when traversing the vaulting greenery of a nearby hill, tamed by winding, concrete embellishments. 

Whisper does tell its story with the odd fairy tale flourish - bookworm Shizuku Tsukishima follows a haughty cat through the back alleys surrounding an educational campus, pressing deeper into dark, unclaimed scrubland - but these journeys only ever take her from her own, cramped working class neighbourhood to a staggered, upper middle class conclave. The jewel of this gated community is an antique shop that hardly ever seems to be open. Peering though the window, Tsukishima spies all sorts of treasures and claimed curios that immediately fire her idling imagination. Written by Hayao Miyazaki and based on a manga written and illustrated by Aoi Hiiragi, Whisper is a patient, empathetic look at the listlessness experienced by children fast approaching adulthood and not really having any idea what they want to do with themselves. It's not that Tsukishima is a dull person either, she's fit to bursting with ideas inherited from a childhood spent checking out books from her local library. 

Tsukishima feels a responsibility to do something with the incredible creative faculty that she has cultivated, one that isn't always compatible with more immediate concerns, such as the high school entrance exams that are creeping ever closer. As well as exploring and legitimising her own aspirations through sustained hard work, there's also a hint of penance in the punishing schedule that Tsukishima sets for herself when writing her own fantasy story. This contrition apparently some sort of atonement for thinking so little of a boy, Seiji Amasawa, who was (at first) a confounding presence in her life before he, very casually, revealed some deeply romantic hidden depths. Tsukishima seems to note some deficit in herself when considering her prospective boyfriend; some way in which he has raced ahead of her with his own dreams. Come the finale, when Amasawa attempts to gallantly bike the pair up a steep incline, Tsukishima dismounts and begins pushing, stating that she will not be a burden to any man.