The 1989 Japanese animated feature film KIKIS DELIVERY SERVICE is probably a minor classic. A young candidate witch has to live on her own for a year in a strange town in order to qualify as an official witch (plot contrivance, but its The Rules), and 13-year-old Kiki, whose only magical power is being able to fly on her broomstick, supports herself with a package delivery service. The story takes place in a world not quite like our own, with a mix of anarchronistic technology (like 20s airplanes and 50s TV sets and funky old cars). The attention to detail is wonderful, the animation is lovely, and its a kind, gentle story. For my taste, it drags a bit in the third quarter with Kikis loss of confidence, but finishes with a slam-bang dirigible crash in the middle of the city that makes up for the Kiki moping stuff just before. Disney released the film in the US with a young Kirsten Dunst doing Kikis voice and no less than Debbie Reynolds as the kindly old-lady shut-in. Its hard to improve on near-perfection, and they certainly didnt with this recent live action remake, though Real Kiki is cute, and the special effects of her flying on her broomstick are mostly quite believable. Computer animation of her cat companion and especially a baby hippo, not so much. The story is freely retold and many of the memorable bits of the animated original are missing. Theres more angst — Real Kiki has to deal with the prejudice of the townsfolk against witches when in the animated version witches were an accepted part of the world and people were mostly just surprised to see one because there hadnt been any around in a long time. The kindly old-lady shut-in becomes a bitter recluse with an angsty backstory. Main thing is that in the live action version, everything is scaled down. The large city of the cartoon becomes a seaside village. The spectacular dirigible crash in which Kiki has to come through despite her self-doubts — gone. Instead, she has to deliver an injured baby hippo to a veterinarian in the middle of a storm. The crisis level has definitely been diminished some here... Budget issues, I guess. Still, its interesting to see a classic cartoon... Made Real. Maybe not entirely successfully, but the wonder is perhaps that it works as well as it does. https://youtube/watch?v=pwPS2X-ctt4
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 22:43:04 +0000
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