Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart boasts the studio’s trademark tender, simplistic storytelling and eye-catching animation, but its narrative is overlong for the story it’s telling, there is much less reliance on the fantastical, and the film’s messages, while important, are a tad preachy. Likely Japanese families (and those worldwide who really love the studio’s output) approve these themes affirming self-reliance and studious judiciousness, but as pure entertainment, Whisper of the Heart doesn’t quite measure up to the best of the studio’s films.
Whisper of the Heart (Blu-ray Combo Pack)
Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo
Studio: Ghibli/Disney
Year: 1995
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 119 minutes
Rating: G
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Japanese, English
Subtitles: SDH, ESL, French
Region: A-B-C
MSRP: $ 39.99
Release Date: May 22, 2012
Review Date: May 15, 2012
The Film
3.5/5
Shizuku (Youko Honna in Japanese, Brittany Snow in English) is preparing to take her high school entrance exams, but she becomes distracted from her studies by her developing interest in one of her peers, the talented violinist (who is also a violin crafter) Seiji (Kazuo Takahashi, David Gallagher). Neither is convinced that higher education is the way to go for them: Shizuku wants to begin her career as a writer, and Seiji wants to train as a woodworker’s apprentice. Seiji’s grandfather Nishi (Keiju Kobayashi, Harold Gould) allows Shizuku to write about his beloved cat figurine The Baron (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Cary Elwes) if she’ll let him be the first one to read her story and decide if she’s got the talent to become a writer and forgo any more school. Shizuku will work on her story during the two months Seiji is away training under a master to see if he has what it takes to immediately become an apprentice.
Hayao Miyazaki’s screenplay takes its time getting to the morals it’s trying to instill in the youngsters who see the film for the first time, so the first half hour generously lets us get to know Shizuku, her mother (Shigeru Muroi, Jean Smart) father (Takashi Tachibana, James B, Sikking) and older sister Shiho (Yorie Yamashita, Courtney Thorne-Smith), her lovesick best friend Yuko (Maiko Kayama, Ashley Tisdale), and other school and neighborhood friends (all set to the beat of John Denver’s famous song “Country Roads”), but some may find the storytelling a mite slow. The themes of believing in oneself and the importance of a quality education aren’t slammed across thoughtlessly, but there’s no question the movie’s artists are interested in getting those points across, and do everything possible to reiterate their messages every chance they get, particularly in the film’s last third. The movie really contains only one real flight of fancy as Shizuku pieces together her fairy tale/love story of The Baron looking for his long lost love Louise, but the animation really springs to life in these sequences after being quite earthbound for much of the movie. Still, the animation is still very impressive with majestic views from many angles and from great heights of busy Tokyo.
Voices in both the Japanese and English versions are for the most part splendid. Jean Smart seems a little removed as the mother in the English version, and Youko Honna’s delivery of Shizuku’s lines seems a bit harsher and more petulant than Brittany Snow’s enunciation in the English version. Harold Gould’s wise and gentle grandfather is a lovely performance, and both Kazuo Takahashi and David Gallagher hit the right notes as the giddily enthusiastic Seiji. Cary Elwes has a gentler take on The Baron than his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, but both offer effective reads on the character.
Video Quality
4/5
The film’s original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is delivered faithfully in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. The film seems to have a slightly blue cast to its color timing giving skies a vaguely turquoise look. Otherwise, color is well saturated and completely under control. The lines in the animation are rock solid with no twitter at all. There is a slight bit of banding noticed in some backgrounds, but it’s not at all distracting. The white subtitles are very easy to read if used. The film has been divided into 11 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
Both the Japanese and English versions of the film have been given a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix, and there is virtually no difference in the effectiveness of either one (for the purposes of review, I watched half the movie in Japanese and half in English). This is a far less sophisticated soundtrack than the one in The Secret World of Arrietty with most of the soundtrack frontcentric apart from some of Yuji Nomi’s music score and an occasional ambient sound effect that finds itself in the rear channels. There is some welcome directionalized dialogue, but it’s not used consistently with most of the dialogue having been placed in the center channel.
Special Features
3.5/5
All of the video featurettes are presented in 1080p.
The entire film may be watched in storyboard form.
“Behind the Microphone” features brief behind-the-scenes looks at the stars recording the English language soundtrack with brief interviews with Brittany Snow, Ashley Tisdale, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Jean Smart, Harold Gould, David Gallagher, and Cary Elwes. It runs 8 minutes.
“Four Masterpieces” is an intriguing montage of four watercolor paintings by Naohisa Inoue being painted using time lapse photography as we see “A Resort Hut,” “Snow Purified Hills,” “Snow Purified Night,” and “Four Seasons on the Hill” come alive before our eyes with effective accompanying sound effects and music. This runs 34 ¾ minutes.
A montage of Japanese trailers and TV spots for the film runs for 10 ¾ minutes.
The second disc in the set is the DVD copy of the movie.
The disc offers promo trailers for Cinderella and Brave.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
It’s not the best of the Studio Ghibli films, but Whisper of the Heart is another beautifully animated family movie. Sound and picture quality are both strong, and there are some interesting bonus features to increase the value of the package.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
