My Beautiful Girl Mari - Detroit News
- Detroit News
- Eric Henrickson
- 06/21/05
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My Beautiful Girl Mari (ADV Films, due July 5) - After a brief theatrical run that included a stop at the Detroit Film Theatre, this award-winning Korean film is being released on DVD - and it's a beaut.
'Mari' really shines in the visual department. Though in a few places it's a bit too obvious it was animated by computer - sometimes it's got that impossible smoothness of motion you can get from CGI - it's a beautiful work. The most startling aspect is that it doesn't use line work. Usually in 2D animation, everything is drawn with a black line, then colored in. No lines here - just the use of shadow to delineate features. It's flat but surprisingly rich and fits the tone of this remarkable bit of filmmaking.
It's a story told in flashback to an amazing summer in Nam-woo's past. The restless boy lives with his widowed mother and grandmother, who run the family restaurant. (Instead of saying hello, Nam-woo's greeting upon arrival after school is, 'Mom! I'm hungry!')
When this school year is complete, his best friend, Jun-ho, will be moving to Seoul to attend a school there. Nam-woo's something of a loner, but since Jun-ho is leaving, the two spend a lot of time together.
He's also taken in a stray cat, Yo, and it's the cat that starts Nam-woo on an amazing journey. It revolves around a run-down, abandoned lighthouse, a magical marble and a flying girl named Mari. One time after looking for Yo in the lighthouse, Nam-woo climbs to the top and is transported in a flash of light to another world. Jun-ho comes looking for him and finds a marble with the shape of a person inside.
In this other world, the visuals really pop, and the film takes a turn toward breathtaking imagination and beauty, from froggy-looking flying fish to tethered clouds.
It might have been a dream, and Jun-ho teases him about it, but on another trip to the lighthouse, both boys are transported there and ride on the back of a monstrous, fluffy dog, and Nam-woo gets to talk to Mari, though she doesn't say anything back - at least not verbally.
A final trip to the lighthouse comes during a storm. Jun-ho's father is out on the water in a fishing boat, and the boys brave the wind and rain when the marble in Nam-woo's pocket flashes. They put the marble in the middle of the broken lightworks, and the result is astounding.
What 'Mari' lacks in plot - some underdeveloped subplotting and a central question that's never answered - it more than makes up for in grace. GRADE: B
Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 (Archive on Thursday, July 21, 2005)