“When Marnie was there” analysis.
Aristotle’s Poetics
In his Poetics, Aristotle mentions two different structures for narrative, the Tragedy
and the Epic. The difference between these structures lies beyond the first plot point.
In a tragedy, things start going downhill till it hits the midpoint and that is where
things seem to finally be taking a turn towards the better until the final twist happens
and it hits the lowest point in the story.
Example: When Oedipus blinds himself after finding out that he killed his father and
married his mother.
- From the Greek tragedy of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
The movie ‘When Marnie was there’, does not follow this format but rather it follows
the structure of the Epic narrative. This form is the opposite of the tragedy. After the
first plot point, the story and the hero’s life start to get better until it reaches the peak.
This is when something happens to the hero which leaves him at his lowest point,
right before the final decision which leads him to find a resolution and ends the story
on a happy note.
According to Aristotle, the Mythos of the story is more important than the Ethos,
because you can have a good narrative without a good character but not without a
great plot. In the case of this movie, both the Mythos and the Ethos are good. This
can be easily seen if one looks at the plot on its own and the character on his own.
The plot (Mythos) follows the Epic structure, where Anna Sasaki is seen on a school
outing as part of her daily routine right before suffering a sudden asthma attack. She
is taken home where her doctor examines her and recommends that she be sent to
a place with cleaner air to help with her asthma. This can be considered as the
inciting incedent. Following this, Anna is sent to her foster mum’s relatives, the
Oiwa’s. The first plot point happens when Anna finds a mansion which feels familiar
to her. She decides to go take a closer look, and this event lays the path to the midpoint.
The mid-point is reached when Marnie takes Anna to the party at the Mansion and
dresses Anna up as the flower girl. From here things start taking a more serious
note, as we learn that Anna's foster parents are being paid to take care of her.
Moreover, we also encounter/ discover that Marnie is being abused by her maids.
These scenarios lead Anna and Marnie to visit the silo where plot point 2 happens,
which is when Marnie abandons Anna in the silo. This event makes the audience
take pity (Pathos) on Anna, because she tried to help Marnie but in the end she was
left alone. This makes Anna angry at Marnie and Anna ends up not wanting to talk to
her. During her fever from the night at the silo, Anna dreams about confronting
Marnie about leaving her alone and after they make up, Marnie explains that they
can no longer see each other.
This leads right into the twist, where Anna and Sayaka go to talk to Hisako who tells
them Marnie’s story and what she went through. Anna then goes back to the Oiwa’s
house because her foster mum, Yoriko, has arrived to take her back to Sapporo.
This is followed by Anna’s recognition (Anagnorisis), when Yoriko hands her a photo
that was left at the orphanage by her grandmother and because of the message left
on the back, Anna realises that Marnie was her grandmother.
If one takes a look at the main character (Ethos) on its own, one can see that it is a
round character because it has depth and is well-developed. Anna is seen
transforming from the shy, quiet girl we see in the start of the movie, to the outgoing
and adventurous girl, who is not afraid to talk to strangers and take risks.
Throughout the movie one can notice the imitation (Mimesis) of life through its world
and characters. Places in the movie are taken from real life, like the city of Sapporo.
The main characters’ realities, that of suffering from asthma and that of being shy
and socially awkward, are also taken from reality because like the latter certain
people have these character traits.
The Hero’s Journey
The ordinary world in this movie is seen briefly in the beginning, when Anna, the
hero, is at a park on a school outing right before the asthma attack. After this we
meet the mentor and the herald. The mentors in this movie are Yoriko and the
Oiwa’s, while the herald is the doctor that examines Anna. The doctor is the one that
gives the call to adventure when he tells Yoriko that she should be sent to a place
with cleaner air.
Here Anna crosses her first threshold and goes to a new place reluctantly and meets
her other mentors, the Oiwa’s. From this point forward Anna starts meeting many of
the archetypes presented in the Hero’s Journey perspective. She first meets the ally,
who is Marnie. Marnie is the one that accompanies Anna throughout the movie and
is the one that helps her overcome her shyness and grow.be. Anna also meets the
threshold guardian, Nobuko Kadoya. This is where we see the first spark of rebellion
from Anna, because it is the first time we see her stand up to someone and call them
names, but after that happens and time passes in the end they make up and become
friends.
The approach to the inmost cave is where the hero faces the second major
threshold, which will set the movie on a slightly different course. This is when Marnie
and Anna go into the silo and Marnie abandons Anna. This is followed by the central
ordeal where Anna confronts Marnie about leaving her in the silo and Anna realises
they can no longer see each other. After learning that they can no longer see each
other, Anna goes to search for Marnie and meets Hisako, another mentor, who
reveals Marnie’s real life.
The road back starts when Yoriko comes to pick up Anna to take her back and this
builds up to the climax. The climax happens when Yoriko tells Anna that they are
getting paid to take care of her. Anna tells her that she knows and that she is okay
with it. Moreover, Yoriko hands her a photograph of the mansion Anna had visited
and tells her it was left to her by her grandmother, when she was left at the
orphanage. After this, Anna turns the photograph that Yoriko handed her and this is
when the denouement is reached because she finds out that Marnie was her
grandmother.
The Sequence Method
With the Sequence method the movie is generally split into 8 different sequences,
each setting something up and paying it off with a little twist that pushes the movie
into the next sequence.
In the 1st sequence, the audience is introduced to Anna which, through her inner
monologue, we notice that she considers herself to be different from the others. We
know she wants to fit in, but she feels like she is an outsider and that she doesn’t
belong with the other kids. This keeps her from talking and interacting with the
others. This sequence ends with Anna having an asthma attack, and the movie
transitions to her house where she is examined by the doctor.
This is where the 2nd sequence begins. The doctor tells Yoriko that she should send
Anna to stay with Yoriko’s relatives so that the fresh air might help with her illness.
Here we also see the primary struggle of the movie when Yoriko asks Anna’s
classmates if she has been getting along with them and they tell her that she barely
speaks. We also realise that Yoriko isn’t Anna’s real mother. This is hinted to the
audience when the doctor tells Anna, “Always worrying about you isn’t she, your
mother”, to which Anna responds with, “My mother?” which shows that she knows
that Yoriko isn’t her biological mother. This is later confirmed by Yoriko herself when
she tells the doctor that Anna hasn’t been the same, she doesn’t seem happy or sad,
and it could be because they aren’t related by blood.
The 3rd sequence starts with Anna on the train to Yoriko’s relatives. Anna has
chosen to go and stay with them. She doesn’t seem happy about the choice, but it
seems to be the path of least resistance. When she arrives, she settles in at the
Oiwa’s house and goes to mail a letter. Which leads to sequence 4.
This sequence starts with Anna running away after she sees people coming her way.
This may be due to the fact that she is shy and doesn’t feel comfortable talking to
new people. Anna ends up falling down some stairs and lands next to a lake. She
notices the mansion for the first time and because it felt familiar to her, she decides
to take a closer look. These are the first unconscious steps towards her destiny.
After she falls asleep next to the mansion and is helped by Toichi, the old fisherman,
she goes back to where she’s staying and starts to dream about the mansion and
sees Marnie in the window for the first time.
Sequence 5 starts the next morning when Anna leaves the house to go to the lake.
She meets Toichi again and they go on a boat ride, so she can draw. She starts
going out every day to the lake and later meets Marnie for the first time. She also
meets Nobuko Kadoya, who she seems to be getting along with until a certain point
where they have a small fight and Anna leaves. This is the sequence where Anna
goes on all the adventures with Marnie.
After all the adventures they go on together, Anna is at her happiest and we reach
the climax of the movie, sequence 6. Following this, Marnie and Anna start talking
and telling each other their deepest secrets. Here, Anna makes the conscious
decision to go where Marnie was afraid of, the silo. When they get there, things start
going bad, and Marnie seemingly abandons Anna.
Here we have reached sequence 7, the worst of the worst. Anna is abandoned in the
silo and when she faces Marnie about it, Marnie tells her they can no longer see
each other. Anna is devastated but goes to try to find Marnie to talk to her again.
This is where she decided to talk to Hisako. Hisako tells Anna Marnie's story.
Here, in sequence 8 we reach the resolution. Anna learns all about Marnie and has
achieved her final destiny. She realises that Marnie is her grandmother and the
problems she had in the beginning have been resolved. Anna ends up feeling better
and is no longer as shy as she was, and this helped her make new friends.
Can the above notions be applied
universally?
As can be seen from the analysis, the movie can be analysed from all three
perspectives/notions because there are aspects which are common. The Hero’s
Journey fits better than the other two. Building a movie on all three of those will only
strengthen it. They are, at their core, the same, meaning they all explain how a
movie should be split up, but each of them goes into different detail.
The sequence method analyses how the movie should be split into different
sequences in order to engage your audience through every minute of the movie and
makes them eagerly wanting to know more and more.
Aristotle’s Poetics discusses what important aspects a story should include so as to
make a great movie. It also discusses how a movie should make us empathise with
the character, and how to apply Reversal (Peripeteia) in order to have a bigger and
more impactful Recognition (Anagnorisis) in the end. Aristotle argues that all this can
be more easily achieved through the use of Imitation (Mimesis) of real life, since it
helps the audience to identify with the characters and the world better.
Finally, the Hero’s Journey introduces character archetypes. This is the baseline of
the types of characters every narrative should include in order for it to be a great
movie and have a great plot. It shows how each archetype influences the hero and
how all characters work to help the hero reach his full potential and come out
victorious in the end.
Perspectives
During the movie three perspectives can be observed. Firstly, there is Anna’s
perspective which we follow throughout most of the movie. Then, there is Marnie’s
perspective which we see little of, and finally there is Hisako’s perspective which we
only get a glimpse of in the end.
One can notice that we as an audience are following the story through Anna’s
perspective because sometimes we can hear her thoughts. For example, in the
beginning of the movie, Anna talks about the circle in life and how the other people
are inside it but she feels like she is outside of it.
Marnie’s perspective is seen in brief moments throughout the movie. We know when
the perspective changes to Marnie’s because at one point Anna is no longer in the
picture and is instead replaced by the flower girl or Kazuhiko. These are Marnie’s
memories of how things happened.
The final perspective is that of Hisako. We notice that the perspective changes to
Hisako's when she starts telling Anna and Sayaka the story of Marnie’s life. We start
listening to Hisako retelling Marnie's story to Anna and Sayaka, while we see her
story unfold which I understood to be Hisako’s thoughts.