Saturday Film Club #5: Whisper Of The Heart

Seiji and Shizuku

Director: Yoshifumi Kondō

Country of origin and year of release: Japan, 1995

Perhaps not one of the best known Studio Ghibli films, Whisper Of The Heart (adapted from Aoi Hiiragi's 1989 manga of the same name) tells the story of fourteen year old Shizuku Tsukishima, a book loving, library haunting girl with a clearly established love of reading and highly developed imagination. 

Over the course of the summer holidays, she becomes fascinated by the identity of the mysterious Seiji Amasawa, whose name keeps appearing in the list of borrowers for every library book she takes out.*

At the same time, she is becoming increasingly irked by her repeated chance encounters with a rude and sardonic boy of the same age, who always seems to meet her at her worst: Forgetting her dad's lunch box, leaving her lyrical re-working of John Denver's 'Take Me Home Country Road' on a park bench... 

Inevitably, he turns out to be Seiji Amasawa. 

While clearly written as a coming of age story of friendship and first love, Whisper Of The Heart is a beautiful anime not just because of the vividly evocative quality of the animation, nor even because of the central coming of age/romance storyline. It's beautiful for the way it celebrates the value of reading and imagination, and the importance of following your dreams: Shizuku and Seiji want different things. He wants to be a violin maker, she wants to be a writer and when Seiji gets the chance to travel to Cromona in Italy to try out as an apprentice, Shizuku is inspired by his dedication to attempt to write her first novel. It is not an unqualified success, but then neither is Seiji's visit to Cromona. What's important is that they tried, and that they both learnt something. 

Equally as important are minor characters, such as Shizuku's best friend Yuki and Sugimura, a sports loving boy known to Shizuku, who Yuki has a crush on. One of the most affecting scenes concerns the discovery of an unwitting love triangle between these three characters. 

There is also the mysterious cat statue, the Baron, owned by Seiji's uncle, whose story inspires Shizuku's literary efforts. The character of the Baron, along with the train travelling, dog baiting, cat Muta, would later return in the aptly titled The Cat Returns in 2002. 

Whisper Of The Heart is a sweet film which isn't overly sentimental, and which is complex and well developed enough to be compelling watching for all ages. Younger viewers will enjoy the cats, older viewers will be reminded of their own teenage dreams and aspirations, as well as the pangs and pains of first love. 

*Sadly a pleasure that was surely lost as soon as library management systems became computerised in the 1990s