Lotte from Gadgetville

A few weeks ago, we went to the Bay Area International Children’s Film Festival, an annual event in Alameda that features two full days of diverse, high quality movies for kids. We saw a delightful shorts program, with work from across the globe including some pieces by children—always inspiring for kids to see. Afterwards we watched the Estonian animated film Lotte from Gadgetville (English version), which was so unique and charming that I am breaking my long hiatus from this blog to write about it!

Directed by Heiki Ernits and Janno Poldma in 2007, Lotte from Gadgetville is the first animated feature film from Estonia and is considered a national treasure. The plot is offbeat, certainly compared to its American counterparts, about a town of animals where everyone is an inventor. Each year, the town holds a competition for the best invention. One day, some children find a book floating in the ocean near their home and inside is a Japanese bee named Susumu. He introduces the town to judo, which catches on like wildfire. So in addition to the invention competition and its preparation, the plot centers on a bee teaching judo to a village of animals. I’m telling you, it’s quirky!

The film’s lead character is a good-natured and spunky little girl dog named Lotte whose dad Oskar wins the competition every year. Lotte’s best friend, Bruno, is a boy cat who suffers from an overly-protective and domineering mother. We learn that Bruno’s dad disappeared, giving some insight into why Bruno’s mom won’t let him out of her sight. We see Lotte helping Bruno to push against the unreasonable limits set by his mom, and their frustration at times, as they strive to compete in a judo championship.

There is also some drama about a neighbor rabbit who cheats in the invention competition, desperate to win. He also has a back story which in the end makes him a bit more sympathetic, something I always appreciate in a film—showing that people are complicated and not necessarily good or bad, a refreshing perspective in children’s media.

Overall Lotte from Gadgetville is a story about friendship, sharing cultures, being courageous, and learning new skills. I would recommend it for kids of all ages, and their grown-ups!

And while you may think tracking down a six-year-old Estonian animated film an impossible task, I am happy to tell you that the film is actually available through Kidflix Global, where you can rent or buy the DVD. 

Children's Film Festival This Weekend!

This weekend we're heading off to Alameda for the Bay Area International Children's Film Festival, and we are excited!

This morning (Saturday) we'll be watching some shorts, and a feature animated film from Estonia called Lotte from Gadgetville which looks very cute. Sunday's Cave of the Yellow Dog, a Mongolian and German production about the friendship between a young nomadic girl and a found dog looks particularly amazing, and reminds me of The Story of the Weeping Camel, which my kids loved and which I will review soon here. And yes, I have been on a six-month hiatus from this blog, but will be getting back to it shortly!

Afternoon showings are geared for the nine-and-up crowd, so we'll be missing those, but these also look pretty amazing, including the French animated film Zarafa about an orphaned giraffe (today) and tomorrow's Le Tableau/The Painting, also French, a story of class conflict unfolding from an unfinished canvas.

The festival also features some workshops for kids, and food trucks (and who doesn't love food trucks?)  So check out the Film Festival website, and head on down!

Brave

Pearl, Grandma Karen, and I had a movie date this week to watch Brave, the perfect choice for an all-girl summer outing, although this is a movie that boys should enjoy too. We left three-year-old George at home primarily because the trailer showed some scary bear scenes. This was a good call, we all agreed, as the nightmarish Mor'du made his ferocious appearance onscreen.

The reviews for this film have been mixed, and some have criticized it for having a thin plot, or showing less innovation than Pixar's earlier works. What is notable, however, is that this is the first Pixar feature in 13 to have a female protagonist. What?! Yes, that is right, and it's about time, although the fact that the female lead is, of course, a princess, and serves to feed the Disney princess marketing behemoth, has also been the subject of criticism. No doubt, the predominance of princesses in films for girls continues to frustrate parents seeking alternative role models for their daughters. Peggy Orenstein's best-selling book Cinderella Ate My Daughter gives some context to this issue and is on my summer reading list.

Merida, the princess in Brave, however, effectively and refreshingly breaks the traditional mold, as a fiery, self-confident, daring young girl who is an expert archer and horseback rider. She delights in riding her trusty steed, Angus, through the Scottish highlands, and hitting targets with her bow and arrow. All the while, her magnificent mane of red curly locks billows around her with a life of its own, a wonder of animation in a film full of gorgeous scenes and expertly rendered details.

The film's main conflict develops when Merida's mother, Queen Elinor, tells her daughter that the time has come for her to marry, and that the first-born sons of her kingdom's clans are on their way to compete for her hand. The furious Merida refuses to play along, until she cleverly schemes up a way to win her own hand in marriage. After this plan fails, Merida looks to a witch for a spell that will change her mother, and let her pursue her own fate.

Her mother changes, but not in the way Merida had expected, and the girl's efforts must now turn to saving her mother, and ultimately the kingdom. This is the part where, to me, the film gets really interesting, in large part because it explores and actually gives some insight into the timeless, sometimes thorny, and complicated topic of mother-daughter relationships.

Queen Elinor has given her life to training her daughter in the feminine arts, knowing that she will one day take the throne. For the sake of the kingdom, whose clansmen expect that their sons will have a chance to share that throne, Elinor must offer her daughter's hand in marriage.  So, we see her strictness and insistence on bending her daughter's will as not simply cruel acts, but rooted in larger concerns and the responsibility she feels for the kingdom itself. A selfish break with tradition, we learn from a legend Elinor tells in the beginning, can lead to the demise of all. This is to say that Elinor is a more complex and sympathetic character than so many wicked mother and step-mother figures we've met in other stories.

As the story unfolds, compromise and the art of listening emerge as redemptive forces. The mother-daughter bond is threatened, but both Elinor and Merida go through major transformations that allow them to see each other in a new light. I actually found it quite moving.

The men and boys in the film serve mainly as comic relief: Merida's raucous and fun-loving father, King Fergus, seems more boy than man; her brothers, red-headed triplets, bounce around, impishly pursuing their own fun; and the clansmen, with their thick brogues and love of food, wine, and fisticuffs, play to every stereotype of ancient Scots you can imagine. The male characters in this film lack the depth and complexity found in Merida and Elinor, and  it seems Pixar is betting that's OK. The film targets a female audience, but boys who like a good fight scene will find satisfaction. Hopefully boys will also enjoy and be moved by the story of a girl determined to make her own way in the world. Merida is certainly struggling with issues that all young people encounter at some point.

I asked Pearl what she thought the main messages of the film were. She said, "To find strength inside yourself, to do what you want to do, and to be brave." I thought that was a pretty amazing take-away and I am happy for Pearl to have seen this film. Yes, this is a princess tale, but it has heart, and Merida serves as a perfect anti-Cinderella. For girls, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

If you go see Brave in the theater, be sure and arrive on time to catch the animated short La Luna, which precedes it. Directed by Enrico Casarosa and nominated for an Academy Award, it is a sweet story about a boy going out one night with his father and grandfather, whose job is to sweep stars on the moon's surface, changing its phase. With a simple but magical premise, and no words, the film, like Brave, sheds light on generational differences and a child's desire to do things his own way. A delightful short film!

The Secret World of Arrietty

The tooth fairy paid us a visit last week, leaving behind her usual gold dollar coin and a handwritten note. Sometimes the fairy leaves other signs of her visit: a pen set down in a different spot, or objects rearranged on the nightstand. I recently overheard Pearl and her friends comparing notes about such evidence. One time, Pearl’s friend Sasha saw footprints on her windowsill. According to Pearl, the tooth fairy is small enough to sit on your hand and lives in a glistening white castle made of teeth.

With tiny visitors on our minds, it seemed fitting to watch The Secret World of Arrietty, a story about a family of four-inch high “borrowers” who live beneath the floorboards of an old house.  The borrowers are so-named because they take things they need from human homes—a pin, a tissue, a cube of sugar. After we watched it, Pearl told me she understood now why small things sometimes go missing.

Based on Mary Norton’s 1952 novel, The Borrowers, The Secret World of Arrietty is the latest production from Japan’s Studio Ghibli, with a screenplay written by Hayao Miyazaki. The film features Studio Ghibli’s trademark stunning animation and careful attention to details, creating a magical world for the audience to enter.

In the film, we meet a boy named Sho, who is awaiting surgery for a heart condition. His parents, busy with their own lives, have left him to rest at his great aunt’s house in the country. Sho is a lonely, sad, and sickly character, but his life starts to change when he spies a tiny girl named Arrietty in the garden one afternoon. Despite her parents’ grave warnings, Arrietty communicates with Sho, and a friendship develops.

This friendship, however, puts Arrietty’s family at risk. A dwindling population, borrowers depend on secrecy for their survival, and discovery by humans has historically led to their demise. When Arrietty’s parents learn that a human knows of their existence, they are terrified and ready themselves to abandon the home they have lovingly built.

Arrietty and Sho’s innocent friendship leads to danger and upheaval, and the unfolding story kept us all (me, three-year-old George, six-year-old Pearl, and their dad) at the edge of our seats. Arrietty is an independent, clever and spunky character, a strong female lead, which I always appreciate. Her independence, however, is also her downfall, as she insists on disregarding her parents’ warnings. This makes her feel very real and all the more sympathetic as ultimately we see her striving to right the mistakes she has made. 

The Secret World of Arrietty is another testament to the brilliance of Miyazaki, a beautifully rendered, creative and entertaining film that will appeal to a broad range of viewers, from small kids to grown-ups.  It’s available now on DVD, so add it to your summer film viewing list. You’ll be glad you did.

And don’t be surprised if you or your kids start to notice evidence of small visitors in your own home. A lost coin or pen top might just mean there are borrowers afoot.

Ponyo

After watching My Neighbor Totoro a while back, I started asking friends for recommendations of other Miyazaki films that would be good for a sensitive three-year-old and got two strong recommendations: Ponyo and Kiki’s Delivery Service.  So off to the video store I went.

(And here I will make a plug for an awesome video store called Five Star Video, the only video store left in Berkeley. They have a great selection of kids films, independent films, new releases and documentaries. A whole wall is dedicated to the Criterion Collection. So please pay a visit, and help keep them open!)

But I digress. We have just watched Ponyo and again, we’ve found a winner for the whole family. Like the classic story of The Little Mermaid, Ponyo spins a timeless, yet modern, tale of love between two worlds.

In the film, a five-year-old boy named Sosuke discovers a strange fish in the ocean near his home and names her Ponyo. When he cuts himself, Ponyo heals his cut with a kiss accidentally ingesting a small amount of Sosuke's blood, and putting herself on the road to transformation from fish to human.

Ponyo, child of an underwater wizard and the goddess of the sea, is a willful creature and unleashes her father’s magic to hasten her transformation. While turning Ponyo into a little girl, the magic spell also throws the world out of balance, pulling the moon perilously close to the earth and causing the ocean to rise and cover the earth’s surface.

There are some amazing, and somewhat alarming, scenes of Sosuke’s town being flooded, and his mother leaves him alone to go rescue people from the local senior center. But ultimately no one is harmed, and the flooded world is actually rather fun and interesting to Sosuke and Ponyo. The two cross town by boat in search of Sosuke’s mom, running into neighbors along the way, and watching fish swimming on the streets below. Ponyo performs several acts of magic, including blowing a toy boat up into a real boat, communicating telepathically with a baby, and walking on water. She is a wonderfully cheerful, enthusiastic and helpful girl, and Sosuke cherishes her.

But, of course Ponyo’s father is not keen on losing his daughter, and something must be done to put the world back in order and end the flood. Ultimately, Sosuke declares his love and acceptance of Ponyo as both a fish and a human, saving the day and making it all turn out right. Both children are great role models, and the parents in this film are caring and loving (although Ponyo’s dad comes across as a bit scary at times). The story has enough twists and turns, and is visually so interesting and beautiful, that it definitely qualifies as a film to please all ages. Our kids watched it twice and will definitely watch it again.

And, by the way, if you do watch it, and you stick around for the credits, you will have this going through your head for days:

Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, fishy in the sea;
Tiny little fishy, who could you really be?
Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, magic sets you free;
Oh she's a little girl with a round tummy.

One of the catchiest (and cutest) theme songs I've heard for a long while!

My Neighbor Totoro

“Wish I had a big friend like that,” said three-year-old George after watching My Neighbor Totoro. Yes, I thought, who wouldn’t want a friend like Totoro? He’s a big furry, bunny-like creature, endowed with magical powers, a forest spirit who never speaks a word, but offers protection to young children and other living creatures. And he flies, standing on a little spinning top that lifts him up above the trees. How cool is that?

Our whole family watched this film together, and we were all pretty enchanted. Directed by the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki in 1988, this now-classic children’s film is visually gorgeous, with beautifully rendered scenes of the lush woods and pastoral landscape of rural Japan. The story follows two girls, Satsuki and her little sister Mei, who have just moved, with their father, into a decrepit country house at the edge of a forest.

A university professor, the father is gone for long stretches of the day, leaving the girls to make their own discoveries and have adventures. When at home, their father is a devoted and loving parent and there are many joyful scenes of family life. Their mother, however, is very sick and in the hospital—a plot line which was at times troubling as there was suggestion of her health declining.

But the overall sense of magic and happiness that fill this film override the few fear-inducing moments. For example, when the girls are first exploring their new house, they find it is over-run by "soot sprites"—mysterious black furballs that scurry across the floors and walls. These are spirits, like Totoro, seen only by the girls, but loud laughter easily dispatches with them. 

Totoro himself at first seems a bit alarming. Mei stumbles upon him at the base of a tree, in a nook protected by a briar patch. She mistakenly lands on his stomach while he is napping and he makes a loud growling and rumbling sound. But she soon realizes he is a friendly creature. Her father later tells her that Totoro is the “keeper of the forest.”

Far and away, the most magical and memorable part of this film for our kids was Totoro’s “Cat Bus”—a giant, bus-shaped feline with 12 legs who bounds across fields and nimbly walks along telephone lines. One evening when Mei is lost, the Cat Bus comes to Satsuki’s aid, inviting her inside and announcing, “Next stop: Little Sister!”

My Neighbor Totoro is a great film for kids of all ages, and grown-ups too. It portrays a loving family, and a sense of childhood discovery, fantasy, and the inner life of children. There is a message of respect for nature, and an overall gentleness about this film that is appealing. One thing I love is that there are no villains. So many children’s films rely on plots of good-guys-versus-bad-guys. My Neighbor Totoro offers a welcome departure from this tired formula with a well-told story and subtle yet compelling dramatic twists. We highly recommend!

Paddle to the Sea, by Guest Blogger Pearl

When she noticed me working on my review of Paddle to the Sea, my daughter Pearl asked if she could also write a review. So, please join me in welcoming my first guest blogger!

The   interesting   thing   about   Paddle   to   the   Sea,  is,   this   little   boy   hase  a  dream   thet   he   can   carv   a   toy   boat   thet   may   be  able   to   paddle   to   the   sea.   On   the   bottom   he   writes;  PLEASE   POOT   ME   BACK   IN   THE   WATER.   At   the   end  of  Winter   he  goes   to  a   large   slope   thet  is   covered   in   snow. In   Spring     the   snow    will   melt  and  Paddle   to   the Sea    will  began  his   jorny.  I loved the part where the frog jumped onto the boat and a water snake tried to eat the frog but the frog jumped on a lily pad.

By  Pearl, age 6