Ghibli’s Forgotten Film: Mimi wo Sumaseba

A theme I’m irresistibly drawn to is the contrast between the tedium of everyday life and the richness of the imagination. The Japanese term for “everday life” is nichijou, and it crops up fairly often in anime and manga taking place in the limitless suburbs surrounding big cities like Tokyo. A perfect vehicle of this theme is Studio Ghibli’s Mimi wo Sumaseba (lit. “If You Listen Closely”), and of their films it is, in spite of the greatness of Totoro, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, my favorite.

Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo (who died tragically thereafter at the age of forty-seven), with script and storyboard by Hayao Miyazaki, this is probably the least known of Ghibli’s films in the West: following the success of Spirited Away, it was given a modest video release under the peculiar title of Whisper of the Heart.

It is certainly worlds removed from most of Miyazaki’s work; although like his other films, it’s the coming-of-age story of a young girl, Shizuku Tsukishima. Only instead of battling spirits, she’s undertaken the rather modest task of translating John Denver’s Country Roads, Take Me Home into Japanese. At the same time she must contend with the mysterious Seiji Amasawa, who may have a crush on her or may just be a huge jerk.

It’s a hard to explain how this forms the premise of a singularly moving film. But if you know what it’s like to be a kid with big dreams in a dull-as-dishwater town, you may, like me, fall in love with it. If that’s not a strong enough recommendation, I may have no choice but to spoil the greatest scene in the movie for you:

A few months ago, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed a young Japanese lady busting the original, John Denver version. She didn’t know she was playing the theme song of my life.