In the opening minutes you feel immediately transported and borne aloft, even if the meaning of the images proves elusive: A fire rages, a chase ensues and a young witch flies off into the night with some very precious cargo.
Magic flowers la movie#
If Yonebayashi’s movie doesn’t have the visual richness and imaginative depth of Ghibli masterpieces like Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away,” its emotional warmth and wondrously inviting hand-drawn imagery carry on that company’s proud tradition. Rather, it’s the first feature from the fledgling Studio Ponoc, which was founded in 2015 by several Ghibli alumni amid (happily premature) speculation that the company would be shutting down its feature-film production. That sensibility holds true in “Mary and the Witch’s Flower,” even if it isn’t technically a Ghibli production. That makes her a natural choice of heroine for Yonebayashi, who previously directed “The Secret World of Arrietty” (2012) and “When Marnie Was There” (2015) for Studio Ghibli, the venerable Japanese animation house where plucky female protagonists have long ruled the roost. As luck would have it, the flower falls into the hands of Mary Smith (voiced by Ruby Barnhill in the English-dubbed version opening in North American theaters), who is no witch at all but rather a rosy-cheeked young girl with an unruly mop of red hair and an appealing blend of spunk and sweetness.
The greatest source of all this magic is the flower of the title, a glowing violet weed called a “fly-by-night,” which blooms only once every seven years and is coveted by witches and wizards for its extraordinary powers. Magic flows freely if not infinitely in “Mary and the Witch’s Flower,” an effortless animated charmer from the gifted Japanese director and Studio Ghibli veteran Hiromasa Yonebayashi.Īdapted by Yonebayashi and Riko Sakaguchi from Mary Stewart’s 1971 children’s novel, “The Little Broomstick,” the movie ushers us into an enchanted realm where water can dance, brooms and carpets take flight, and woodland critters transform into fantastical beings.
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