REVIEW - FROM UP ON POPPY HILL

The feeling that I associate with watching a Studio Ghibli film is trust. Before the film begins, I trust that it will be good, and as it progresses, I trust that it will continue to be good, no matter what my reservations, which are reliably few. Just as you can come to expect certain things from certain filmmakers, you can expect high quality filmmaking from Studio Ghibli. This quaint film has no grand pretensions, nor aspirations to break free of its earthly concerns as so many other Ghibli works have done, and it is as comfortable and caressing an experience as such a film ought to be. Goro Miyazaki does refrain from pushing for a level of greatness attainable even in such a humble context, and thus hinders the film from achieving anything beyond its pay-grade, but sometimes even the slightest push can be too much. Best to let the film drift past, slip down, settle into place. And his evocation of place and tone is so delicate and so exact that I wouldn't want to risk disturbing it - the still of an early morning rise to prepare for the day ahead, the quiet, festive bustle of the village stalls in the dying light. Neither Miyazaki son nor father can resist a little wistfulness, it seems, and there's plenty of it on show in From Up on Poppy Hill, which is a collaboration between Goro and Hayao. The uneventfulness does keep the film from gaining much pace, and the minor narrative twists and turns could have been applied with more restraint (or at least less repetition), but the gentle mood of tranquility and geniality is steadfast throughout, even as it appears the film is just about to go there and fully embrace none other than incest. Never mind Bambi's mother getting shot, try explaining that one to the kids!