I managed to see From Up On Poppy Hill in the theater this past week. As a result of film distributor GKIDS' inability to release a film nationwide, Poppy Hill has been touring the country a few movie theaters at a time. Since the film has been out a few years I had already seen a dubbed version of Poppy Hill a couple of times. Which allowed me to be able to relax and enjoy the show on a less critical level.
The
English version is well produced and the voice talent sublime. I
actually enjoyed the translation better then Disney's treatment of last year's Arriety. But while watching the previews before Poppy Hill started I had to shake my head. All of those animated sequels were going to make millions, tens of millions of dollars. While the movie I was going to watch is superior in every way, few would ever watch it or even hear of it. And it didn't have to be that way.
Poppy Hill had no marketing in the US. As a result the film made a depressing 900k. While last year's Disney release of Arriety made US19mm in theaters. Ghibli has been growing its brand in the US for more then a
decade. They have won an Academny Award and had critical and box office
success. But one of their most marketable films has gone nowhere. It is hard to imagine how any distribution deal could or should survive that level of performance.
Poppy Hill does have drawbacks. The film fails to utilize the animation media to enhance the plot. The art is effective without ever being impressive. The direction is adequate but overly cautious. It's hard to see why it needed to be animated at all since it in no way exists in the world of fantasy. Indeed, Poppy Hill could have been recorded as a live action film for much cheaper. But it wasn't. And I'm glad. Because Ghibli needed an accessible film. And they delivered.
As for the English dub, there were a few moments of language translation equals re-write. This was most obvious when the the original film delved into the taboo of incest. The translated version largely ducked the controversy. But overall the dub is true to the original subtitles.
