VivisQueen
Adventurer
<img src="http://www.animeuknews.net/img/uploaded/2012-10-30Wolf Children Ame and Yuki.jpg">
<b>Review of The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki - SLA Screening Review by VivisQueen</b>
<em>The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki</em> is a simple title for a simple idea. A young woman falls for a man she meets at university only to discover that he is in fact a werewolf. That his gentle human expressions reveal only half his identity does not deter her from loving him and bearing his children. The real problems start when he dies and leaves her to raise their children alone. What follows is an exquisitely tender fable about single-motherhood and the tough decisions involved in living the fulfilling life we desire. Director Mamoru Hosoda (<em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>, <em>Summer Wars</em>) often finds inspiration in his everyday experiences, and <em>Wolf Children</em> apparently sprang to life when he noticed all the women around him getting pregnant at the same time. As a fable, the movie remains emotionally potent because it remains grounded in homely realism: despite the supernatural characters Hosoda never loses the reality of people's hearts.<br>
The children, Ame and Yuki, are named after rain and snow respectively to symbolise that, although they have the same substance - water - they are nonetheless completely different elements. Yuki is the elder, a girl of boundless spirit and curiosity who just wants to play with wild snakes and tease her mother senseless. Ame, the little boy, shrinks from human contact and asks heartrending questions like why wolves are always the bad guys in fairy tales. Not only are they different people, they interpret their identities in different ways and offer contrasting responses to their family trials. Hosoda and his co-writer Satoko Okudera (<em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>, <em>Summer Wars</em>) script them like ordinary children. So convincing are their tantrums and fits of giggles and rambunctious play that I immediately began to compare them to the delightful siblings in Hayao Miyazaki's <em>My Neighbour Totoro</em> - and a greater compliment I could not give. One amusing exchange sees Yuki trying to convince her mother to let her go to school, and when she's repeatedly denied, she begins to yell while her head comically transforms into that of a cub. That moment is triumphantly funny precisely because we know that's how real infants would react if only they could morph. The implicit tragedy, of course, is that these children's normalcy is mere illusion: despite being so utterly human, the outside world would never accept them as such.<br>
Although the titular protagonists are the children, the mother Hana emerges as the true hero. She becomes the axle on which the story revolves and the prism through which we view the children's struggle. Her herculean efforts to protect them from banal dangers such as prying social services agents spares the children the worst forms of prejudice when they're young. But later, as they develop their own minds, it is her turn to accept her changing identity as mother and not to hold on too hard. In this way, <em>Wolf Children</em> represents as much a celebration of motherhood as it does a coming of age journey.<br>
Hosoda makes fantastic use of his particular medium by letting the animation do a lot of the talking. The whole thing is animated in 3D and subsequently augmented in 2D, a fairly unusual process. However, the heartfelt tone of the movie has less to do with the animation style or technique and more to do with the director's touch. Hosoda teases out the emotional detail from the narrative using vignettes and montages entirely free of dialogue. The intricacies of family (dis)unity, the convolutions of identity formation, all the things that make up the mosaic of family life, we discover them largely visually. I noticed this talent during the opening dream scenes of Hana in a field, when the stunning clarity of the flowers, for example, promises a simple, clean honesty. During later events, when the location changes to a rickety old house in the countryside, the animation tells the structure's years of disuse in mere seconds of detail-crammed footage.<br>
<em>Wolf Children</em> loses momentum in the final act as the plot winds down to a somewhat obvious ending (obvious, at least, from about the middle point). Particularly unhelpful is that the final half hour features none of the bittersweet detail to alleviate the linear march toward the end. But lacklustre conclusions have been a weakness in Hosoda's previous works. <em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>'s twist left me cold after the first iteration; <em>Summer Wars</em>' world-in-peril climax appears incongruously explosive for its humble premise. But as usual, minor blemishes cannot overwhelm the overall beautiful composition of the film.<br>
Simple in title and simple in design, <em>Wolf Children</em> nevertheless manages to express complexity and polish. It achieves a touching tale about how difficult it is just to be you, and more importantly, how hard it is to decide what version of you to be. We are all complex combinations of traits and, at important junctures in our lives, find ourselves having to leave behind aspects of our personalities. Studious Hana made that choice when she chose to love a wolf man and become a housewife and mother; the wolf man made that choice when he decided to become a working father living in the city. And now Ame and Yuki, the most vulnerable of all the characters, face decisions even starker than that.<br>
<b>Final score: 8 out of 10</b>
<b>Review of The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki - SLA Screening Review by VivisQueen</b>
<em>The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki</em> is a simple title for a simple idea. A young woman falls for a man she meets at university only to discover that he is in fact a werewolf. That his gentle human expressions reveal only half his identity does not deter her from loving him and bearing his children. The real problems start when he dies and leaves her to raise their children alone. What follows is an exquisitely tender fable about single-motherhood and the tough decisions involved in living the fulfilling life we desire. Director Mamoru Hosoda (<em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>, <em>Summer Wars</em>) often finds inspiration in his everyday experiences, and <em>Wolf Children</em> apparently sprang to life when he noticed all the women around him getting pregnant at the same time. As a fable, the movie remains emotionally potent because it remains grounded in homely realism: despite the supernatural characters Hosoda never loses the reality of people's hearts.<br>
The children, Ame and Yuki, are named after rain and snow respectively to symbolise that, although they have the same substance - water - they are nonetheless completely different elements. Yuki is the elder, a girl of boundless spirit and curiosity who just wants to play with wild snakes and tease her mother senseless. Ame, the little boy, shrinks from human contact and asks heartrending questions like why wolves are always the bad guys in fairy tales. Not only are they different people, they interpret their identities in different ways and offer contrasting responses to their family trials. Hosoda and his co-writer Satoko Okudera (<em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>, <em>Summer Wars</em>) script them like ordinary children. So convincing are their tantrums and fits of giggles and rambunctious play that I immediately began to compare them to the delightful siblings in Hayao Miyazaki's <em>My Neighbour Totoro</em> - and a greater compliment I could not give. One amusing exchange sees Yuki trying to convince her mother to let her go to school, and when she's repeatedly denied, she begins to yell while her head comically transforms into that of a cub. That moment is triumphantly funny precisely because we know that's how real infants would react if only they could morph. The implicit tragedy, of course, is that these children's normalcy is mere illusion: despite being so utterly human, the outside world would never accept them as such.<br>
Although the titular protagonists are the children, the mother Hana emerges as the true hero. She becomes the axle on which the story revolves and the prism through which we view the children's struggle. Her herculean efforts to protect them from banal dangers such as prying social services agents spares the children the worst forms of prejudice when they're young. But later, as they develop their own minds, it is her turn to accept her changing identity as mother and not to hold on too hard. In this way, <em>Wolf Children</em> represents as much a celebration of motherhood as it does a coming of age journey.<br>
Hosoda makes fantastic use of his particular medium by letting the animation do a lot of the talking. The whole thing is animated in 3D and subsequently augmented in 2D, a fairly unusual process. However, the heartfelt tone of the movie has less to do with the animation style or technique and more to do with the director's touch. Hosoda teases out the emotional detail from the narrative using vignettes and montages entirely free of dialogue. The intricacies of family (dis)unity, the convolutions of identity formation, all the things that make up the mosaic of family life, we discover them largely visually. I noticed this talent during the opening dream scenes of Hana in a field, when the stunning clarity of the flowers, for example, promises a simple, clean honesty. During later events, when the location changes to a rickety old house in the countryside, the animation tells the structure's years of disuse in mere seconds of detail-crammed footage.<br>
<em>Wolf Children</em> loses momentum in the final act as the plot winds down to a somewhat obvious ending (obvious, at least, from about the middle point). Particularly unhelpful is that the final half hour features none of the bittersweet detail to alleviate the linear march toward the end. But lacklustre conclusions have been a weakness in Hosoda's previous works. <em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em>'s twist left me cold after the first iteration; <em>Summer Wars</em>' world-in-peril climax appears incongruously explosive for its humble premise. But as usual, minor blemishes cannot overwhelm the overall beautiful composition of the film.<br>
Simple in title and simple in design, <em>Wolf Children</em> nevertheless manages to express complexity and polish. It achieves a touching tale about how difficult it is just to be you, and more importantly, how hard it is to decide what version of you to be. We are all complex combinations of traits and, at important junctures in our lives, find ourselves having to leave behind aspects of our personalities. Studious Hana made that choice when she chose to love a wolf man and become a housewife and mother; the wolf man made that choice when he decided to become a working father living in the city. And now Ame and Yuki, the most vulnerable of all the characters, face decisions even starker than that.<br>
<b>Final score: 8 out of 10</b>
