Regie:
Gorō MiyazakiDrehbuch:
Keiko NiwaMusik:
武部聡志Besetzung:
Kokoro Hirasawa, 寺島しのぶ, Etsushi Toyokawa, Gaku Hamada, Rumi Hiragi, Hiroshi Iwasaki, Yuri Kimura, Miyuki Sahaku, ニケライ・ファラナーゼStreaming (5)
Inhalte(1)
Die 10-jährige Aya wächst im St. Morwalds Kinderheim auf. Mit ihrer quirligen Art hält sie die Mitarbeiter auf Trab und heckt gemeinsam mit ihrem besten Freund Pudding und den anderen Kindern gerne Streiche aus. Um potenzielle Adoptiveltern abzuschrecken, präsentiert sie sich dabei nicht immer von ihrer besten Seite. Überraschend wird sie eines Tages von einer mysteriösen Frau namens Bella Yaga und deren Begleiter Mandrakus adoptiert und muss fortan der unsympathischen Hexe assistieren. Verständlicherweise ist das so gar nicht nach Ayas Geschmack und sie sucht nach einem Ausweg. Doch auf dem Haus liegt ein Zauber und das Vorhaben erweist sich schwieriger als gedacht. Zum Glück findet sie in dem sprechenden Kater Thomas einen Verbündeten, der ihr zur Seite steht. (Leonine)
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The expectations attached to Earwig and the Witch are exceedingly high, because it is branded with the Ghibli studio logo at the beginning and the studio’s key personnel appear in the credits. The paradox of the project is that it was evidently initiated by Ghibli’s court producer, Toshio Suzuki, as part of a long-term technological experiment in which they would try out 3D computer animation, as that seems to be the dominant current trend. Hayao Miyazaki tried a combination of computer and hand-drawn animation in the short Boro the Caterpillar and his son Goró lent his patronage to the TV series Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, which combined 3D models with a cell-shading visual whose sketches were created in the Ghibli studio. Goró Miyazaki then got the green light from the studio’s veterans for the feature-length Earwig and the Witch, but with a lower budget, as it would not be shown in cinemas, but would be only a special made-for-TV movie. The target medium could theoretically explain the shortcomings of the screenplay. The film gives the impression of being a television pilot and, instead of dramatic conciseness, it relies on an episodic nature and only basic outlines of the characters and their development and mutual dynamics. Unfortunately, that does not change the fact that the screenplay doesn’t work as a whole and it comes across as a very shoddy adaptation of the book by Diana Wynne Jones. Whereas the amazing Howl’s Moving Castle drew out the essence of its source material by the same author and further developed it, Earwig and the Witch tries to get by with merely scratching the surface of the book’s basic concept. Paradoxically, the film’s end credits, where the further development of the characters and their lives together are shown in drawings (similar to what Katsuhiro Otomo did in Steamboy, for example), are more fun and bring out more emotion than the whole preceding story. However, the main drawback of the film consists in the 3D computer animation, or rather in the idea that viewers would want to watch something that was intended from the beginning to be a technological test. This assumption points out the overall outdatedness and confused nature of the project, which attempts to return to times long ago when everyone excitedly watched the leaps and bounds made by early computer animation in Pixar’s shorts. In Earwig and the Witch, unfortunately, Ghibli relates its level of animation, or rather shading textures, physics and virtual lighting, to those wooden years. Whereas the competition took its first CGI baby steps a long time ago, Ghibli is just now attempting its first hesitant steps and going back to the beginning on the level of the first Toy Story, but unfortunately without a sufficient degree of self-reflection. At Pixar, they were aware of the limits of the technology of that time and therefore came up with a story from the lives of plastic toys. At Ghibli, they immediately attempted to find out if they could, with their limited possibilities, create the equivalent of their renowned animated films with human and fantastical characters. Unfortunately, the result looks like someone shot a variation of Ghibli films with action figures. It is necessary to acknowledge that in its constituent elements, particularly in the expressive movements of the figures and the design of the characters and exteriors, the film asserts its origins and demonstrates the creative abilities of the animators, though it lags behind technologically. When Hayao Miyazaki reportedly compared Earwig and the Witch to Pixar, he meant Pixar’s early days. As previously mentioned, the main problem with the film consists in the fact that viewers do not expect a mere animation demo, especially not one that is technologically underdeveloped in comparison with the current mainstream standard. The sad result is that Ghibli, which embodied the global peak of feature-length animated films and was a role model for all other animators, is presenting to the audience a half-retro work that can stand up to comparisons with the antediluvian stage of computer animation, which has long since moved on from generic visuals and plastic textures and, in projects such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), demonstrates a broad new scope of technological possibilities that the veterans evidently haven’t even dreamed of.
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Die Handlung ist ganz in Ordnung, ist ja ein Ghibli, also gibt es hier wieder ein starkes junges Mädel (wen überrascht‘s). Ein paar gute Ideen sind auch dabei, ab und zu ein geheimnisvoller hauch, der aber mir nach nicht den besten Werken dieses Studios das Wasser reicht. Aber immer noch ein Ghibli zu erkennen! Was dem das Genick bricht, ist die 3D Animation. Ich kann ja verstehen, dass es der erste so verarbeitete Film des Studios ist, aber ehrlich gesagt sieht es nicht gut aus. Sehr künstlich, allein die Haare, bei nähere Aufnahme sehen sie aus wie eine Plastik Perücke... Und so, auch wenn die Geschichte nicht von schlechten Eltern ist und mich manchmal auch interessierte, ja, im Allgemeinen hat es leider dem Eindruck geschadet. Also wäre ich lieber, wenn Herr Miyazaki sich lieber an bekannte Konzepte halten würde und das spielen im 3D Sandkasten lieber an Pixar, DreamWorks oder auch einzelnen China Studios überlassen würde. Weil diese Qualität an 3D Animation ist (von all dem, was ich sah) höchstens mittelmäßig, eher leicht unter durchschnittlich. 5/10
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