Whisper of the Heart is another deeply felt movie from Studio Ghibli. I loved it for nearly the same reason that I loved Only Yesterday. There's enough realism to make you relate to it closely but enough fantasy to make it seem like something that should be real. Also, it is a genuine love story.
What follows is a brief synopsis. I hope it will make you want to watch the movie if you haven't and remind you of it if you have. The feature opens with the main heroine, Shizuku, reading a fairy tale book. She notices that, like every other book she's read that summer, it's been read by somebody named Amasawa Seiji. At class, she works at a translation of the song "Country Road" to show to her friends. While riding the train, she notices that one of her fellow passengers is a fat cat! Intrigued, she follows it eventually to an antique shop. Inside, she sees a wonderful figurine- a cat dressed as a lord. The shop owner refers to him as the Baron. He tells her that he bought the Baron while in Italy. The Baron's fiance was being repaired, and the shop keeper didn't want to sell him without her. The antique store owner promised to return for her, but due to World War II was not able to.
Shortly after, Shizuku leaves her book on a park bench. When she goes back for it, she discovers some boy is flipping through it, and is reading her parody of Country Road, called Concrete Road. He gives her back the book, but also teases her about the song. Later, she finds out that he's the Seiji whom she's so often thought about! While they quarrel a little at first, they hit it off pretty good. He wants to be a violin maker and study in Italy. Inspired by his dedication, Shizuku decides to try to succeed at her ambition to be a writer. Although her family hassles her some for ignoring her school studies for this, she finishes her story and shows it to the antique store owner, who is also Seiji's grandfather. He tells her that he loved it.
In the end of the movie, Seiji asks Shizuku to marry him, and she agrees. I think this is the crux of the movie- is this believable? I think it is. When you love somebody, it's not the sort of thing where you aren't sure about it. They aren't promising to marry right away, it's an acknowledgement that they love each other and want to be together.
Mimi wo Sumaseba literally means "If you listen closely". That's the title of Shizuku's story. The english sub title is Whisper of the Heart. I think that, together, the titles tell the story of the movie. The point of the movie, apart from its story, is to listen to your own heart. You can't let somebody tell you what to be and you can't put off what it tells you for anything else. My favorite scenes were the ones from Shizuku's story and her dream. They're fantastically vivid, like they were designed after an entire story was thought of for them. I don't know what the dead bird meant though. I wish there was a complete telling of it, there was just so much implied by the brief segment where the Baron is urging the girl on as they fly through the floating islands.
This anime is a manga series and one movie.
These are the best pictures I could find for Mimi wo Sumaseba. Feel free do view, download, and enjoy.
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