The Secret World of Arrietty - Trailer Review

The Secret World of Arrietty

The trailer I am reviewing is the newest of the award winning Studio Ghibli films, The Secret World of Arrietty, based on the novel “The Borrowers.” Welcome to the hidden world of Borrowers, a secret world hidden from man for many centuries and the trailer encompasses the basic plot of the story. I’ve watched the movie before, and I realized that the trailer did not reveal a lot of important elements of the story; and, if they did they were only small portion left as cliffhangers.

The narrative of the trailer includes the protagonist Arrietty introducing the history of her life. This is done so that the audience is given an introduction and a basic understanding of the novel. The narrative structure includes an introduction of Arrietty and later explains a build up in the trailer. This leads to her struggle (with the human who spotted) and her attempts to return to her normal borrowing lifestyle. This leads to the main problem in the structure; Arrietty’s mother gets caught by the humans. This ultimately leads to the trailer revealing events and as I noticed they were very smart not to reveal too much of the plot. Nothing about the resolution was given, and thus the audience desired to watch the film more.

The cinematography is very inspiring and amazing. It is an animated film and thus more work is done to incorporate organizing the shots. Storyboards are made, and a lot is done to animate and color the film itself. Also another important element of the cinematography is the color palette used in the film. The lighting is often altered to add a dramatic feel to the film. And artistically a lot of color contrast is used (such as red dress in a green field) and can make the shots more vivid and attractive to the audience.

The editing of this trailer is very effective towards building a great trailer. Most of the trailer follows the sequence of the plot, but since most of the film is trying to be covered in such a short amount of time, the editors did their best to maintain the continuity. There is a lot of rhythmic matching shots like when sugar drops on the floor, you can hear the sound of it dropping and it quickly switches to a reaction shot of the surprised Human encountering the borrower. Despite it being an animated film, a lot of editing concepts (short/reverse, axis, direction, movement, point of view shots) are used but are not as thoroughly exemplified.

The sound however in the trailer is the most elaborate parts of the trailer. The dialogue of the different characters overlaps during the film and add a rising problem to the plot. The FX is also amazing, because instead of drowning out the film in song and text they show most of the action shots of the film to get the audience interested. There is this really climactic part in the film where many people are speaking, the FX of walking and action noises are being used, and the music adds to action as well. The music builds up to a point of interest and it intensifies to a point where the climax is taking place in a film.

Overall, the trailer is well thought out and adds to the interest of the audience. Surely, since Studio Ghibli is renowned and award-winning many people will flock to see the film. However they don’t realize is that dramatic impact the trailer has on them. The soundtrack and the action of the trailer pulls in the audience. The trailer is appealing to many, and I highly recommend watching it. Even though I watched it, and was unhappy with the ending, but it is a good film.