Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

My Internet connection has been spotty all day, so let's see if we can get this review posted.  If not, I'll just have to post it tomorrow.  But our Studio Ghibli film du jour is Kiki's Delivery Service (1989).

SYNOPSIS:
Kiki (Kirsten Dunst), a young witch, has just turned 13 and has to spend a year on her own, developing her skills as part of her apprenticeship.  But leaving home to live on her own is a scary concept, especially since her only skill is broom flying (and she can barely handle that).  Nonetheless, she sets off with her talkative black cat, Jiji (Phil Hartman), and sets up a flying delivery service in an oceanic town.

REVIEW:
This is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films!  Like their last film, My Neighbor Totoro (1988), this is more of a day-in-the-life kind of story.  There's not a lot going on except for some added drama and tension at the very end.  Pretty much the whole film is following Kiki as she tries to get herself established in Koriko, a fictional oceanic city in Europe.

Hayao Miyazaki and his team of artists traveled to Sweden for scenic inspiration for this film.  As a matter of fact, a lot of street signs in the film are copied directly from streets in Stockholm, Sweden.  Miyazaki has claimed that this fictional city of Koriko is located between the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea.  It's set in the 1950s, in an alternate world where WWI and WWII never happened.  You definitely see the '50s aesthetic with the cars, trucks, and busses driving around the city.

Definitely a European city in the '50s.

From the moment Kiki arrives in town, she's greeted by a nosy boy named Tombo (Matthew Lawrence).  He's part of an aviation club and is fascinated with the young witch, to the point of being a bit rude (calling her "Miss Witch" instead of asking her name).  Kiki does her best to ignore him, but he's persistent, tracking her down in order to invite her out to his aviation club meetings.

Tombo coming off a bit aggressive in meeting a new girl.

Kiki gets exceptionally lucky, as she stumbles across a place to live and work within the first day she arrives.  She helps out Osono (Tress MacNeille), the owner of a bakery shop, who offers her a room to stay in.  In lieu of payment, she asks that Kiki watch the bakery every now and then.  She also helps Kiki get started in her delivery service by promoting her to customers.

A very pregnant Osono thanking Kiki.

Kiki's first delivery goes awry, as she drops the package in a forest.  But upon retrieving it, she meets Ursula (Janeane Garofalo) a young painter in a cabin whom she becomes close friends with.  On another delivery, she also befriends a Madam (Melanie MacQueen) and her housemate, Bertha (Edie McClurg).  They send a herring and pumpkin pie to the Madam's granddaughter for her birthday, but the granddaughter isn't very grateful, saying she hates her grandma's stupid pies.

Kiki helping out Madam and Bertha.

I love the contrast between Kiki and all the other kids she meets in this film.  She's always very polite and willing to go out of her way to help others, while all the other kids we see are more selfish and uncaring.  Not only the granddaughter, but there's a young boy who gets a gift delivered and shows little interest or gratitude.  Plus, Tombo (and his friends) is inadvertently rude to Kiki and he doesn't bother to learn her actual name until later in the film.

Meanwhile, Kiki refuses to be paid for a job she didn't work and offers to do chores around the person's house to earn her pay.  She's always overly nice and helpful with everyone.  Except Tombo, whom she keeps snubbing throughout the movie for no good reason.  I mean, he's a little bit too aggressive in talking with her from the start, but we find out later that he's actually a really kind guy, and as a member of an aviation club, he got a little over-excited at a real live witch who could fly on her own.

Just as Kiki and Tombo were becoming good friends though, she falls into a depression out of nowhere and snubs him once again.  She suddenly finds it impossible to fly anymore, and Jiji isn't able to talk to her.  He only meows and acts like a regular cat.  She fears she's losing her powers and ends up taking a vacation to visit her friend Ursula in the woods, to relax and decompress for a bit.

Ursula and Kiki having a sleepover at Ursula's cabin in the woods.

I won't spoil the ending, but it takes an extreme situation to help her snap out of her funk and get control of her powers once again.  An interesting note: in the original Japanese film, Jiji never speaks to Kiki ever again. Hayao Miyazaki said that once a witch grows up, she loses the ability to communicate with her cat, which is what apparently happened to Kiki.  But the Disney dub of this film made sure that Jiji spoke to Kiki again once she gets her powers back, as they felt it would be sad if she could never speak to her cat again.

Another sad fact: Disney hired Phil Hartman do the voice work for Jiji.  But he was sadly murdered in his sleep by his third wife in a murder-suicide.  He had just completed the dub work for this film when he died, and Disney dedicated their dubbed version to his memory.

RIP Phil Hartman.  You were the best Jiji.

RECOMMENDATION:
As I said previously, this is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films.  It's such a fun story, and everyone is so nice throughout the film.  It truly espouses Hayao Miyazaki's vision of a better world.  I'd recommend everyone watch this at least once in their life.