When Marnie Was There

In Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s film 12 year old Anna has an asthma attack at school; on a doctor’s advice her foster mother Yoriko sends her for the summer to Yoriko’s relatives in a coastal town between Kushiro and Nemuro. Anna finds an empty mansion across a salt marsh and meets Marnie. Toshio Suzuki handed Yonebayashi the project and asked him to move Joan G. Robinson’s 1967 English novel to Japan. Yonebayashi refused at first, thinking it hard to visualise, then returned with his own additions, one being that Anna draws. The setting changed but Marnie stayed blonde and blue eyed. Hayao Miyazaki objected; producer Yoshiaki Nishimura said Miyazaki found selling the film on that image outdated. Yohei Taneda designed the Marsh House; Yonebayashi asked him to draw it as another character watching over Anna, and Taneda scouted buildings in Hokkaido. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 88th Academy Awards, where Inside Out won, and took that title at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. Suzuki announced a pause to restructure the studio 2 weeks after release. A good fit if you want the question of trust that opens when Anna learns the government pays her foster parents. Not for anyone who wants to know who Marnie is early; the connection comes only at the end of summer.