Story (Spoilers!)
Kiki’s Delivery Service opens with Kiki rushing to tell her parents that she would be leaving that night on a full moon to pursue her year of independent study and become a witch with her sarcastic cat, Jiji. She takes up her broomstick and sets off into the night to find a town to stay in, but is grounded by the rain. She sleeps in a boxcar, which heads into the town of Koriko where she meets Tombo, a boy who is obsessed with her ability to fly, and Osono, the woman whose bakery she lives in. Osono offers her an attic room, where she stays to help Osono with her bakery and begin her own flying delivery service. On her first delivery, she drops a black cat doll and Jiji has to pose as the doll until she retrieves it from a painter, Ursula, and exchanges the doll for her cat. Caught up in another delivery, Kiki misses a party she was invited to by Tombo and falls ill from extensive exposure to cold and rain. She wakes up and is tricked by Osono into delivering a package to Tombo, whom she apologizes to. He takes her to his newest project, a bicycle with a propeller attached to the front. They ride to the beach, but fly over a guardrail and wreck the bike. Tombo meets some of his friends and Kiki is intimidated, rushing back to her attic room to find that she’s losing her witch’s powers and the ability to understand Jiji’s speaking. Depressed and alone, Kiki suspends her business and spends the night with Ursula and realizes that she has a form of writer’s block until she can find a new purpose. That purpose is found when Tombo is carried away by a loose blimp. She steals a man’s broom and takes off, saving Tombo’s life, regaining her happiness and her flight.
My Review (Minor Spoilers)
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a coming-of-age story where the goal is to reverse the coming of age. Kiki has a delivery job that she loves, literally soaring above the monotony of life in the city below. She is able to be herself and enjoy life with her best friend Jiji and practice her powers at her job. But she soon grows tired of her job and her ability to be happy outside of it crumbles. She is growing up and her ability to appreciate herself and derive pleasure from what used to make her happy suffers for it. While at Ursula’s cabin the second time, she expresses her distaste for her looks, reflecting the fact that her powers and her self-esteem declined at roughly the same time, possibly directly related. As she sees that her friend Tombo is in danger and the only way to save him is to use the thing that made her happy and independent in the first place, forcing her to believe in herself to save him.
Miyazaki as Auteur
I have noticed that one of the major Miyazaki storytelling fingerprints was present in this film, in that the primary antagonist of the film was the main character’s ennui and self-doubt. It was present in Whisper of the Heart with Shizuku losing faith in her ability to write, even though it was what allowed her to rise above everyday life in the writing sequence. It was present in Princess Mononoke with Ashitaka’s arm growing as he experienced more and more hate along his journey. It wasn’t as present in Spirited Away, as that film had more abstract and pressing thematic matters to attend to. In Howl’s Moving Castle, it was Howl’s decomposition into fully being a demon as he experiences more and more war outside of the black exit to his castle. I don’t remember it being in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. In addition, this film is about the Miyazaki fingerprint of characters rising above life. Kiki rides her broom above the clouds, high above adult life. Shizuku does the same thing, Nausicaä rides a glider above the clouds, Howl has wings, etc.
In addition to those, the most significant aspect of Miyazaki as an auteur is his use of negative space, both in scene-setting and pacing. In an interview with Roger Ebert after the release of Spirited Away, he elaborated on his film-making style and used clapping to describe ma, or nothingness, as the space between his individual claps. He believed that having breathing room in his films was critical to capturing the viewership of children. He didn’t believe that they wanted nonstop action and chaos, but rather an attention to the way they see the world: with wonderment and awe. There is an indescribable air to any film he is attached to. They aren’t slow or boring, but they are intentionally spacious in both setting and pacing. Entire scenes of wide open spaces with a breeze blowing the characters’ clothes and the grass they’re laying on is the primary way he conveys this. It’s a time to relax and just absorb the levity of the film rather than the action.
Conclusion and Rating
While maintaining the standard for Ghibli, this film does little to move beyond it. This film embodies ma as a narrative technique, putting the viewer in the same state of mind as the child main character, using the pacing to do so. It’s a film about rising above life free of restrictions based on any characteristic of Kiki’s, something that would be perfect for children to learn from. The voice acting was fine even though the audio quality of some of the voices, especially Kiki’s, was abysmal. Everything in the film was fine, but unfortunately nothing really stood out other than the gracefulness with which it was told. It isn’t a bad film but it’s not the best I’ve seen from Ghibli.
6/10
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