A perfect coming of age film.
100/100
Original Release: 1989
Directed By: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Keiko Toda
Favourite Quote:
“Flying used to be fun until I started doing it for a living.”
Favourite Shot:
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a perfect coming of age film and it features all of the classic trademarks that a coming of age film needs.
Deciding to leave your home and family immediately because there’s good weather. Flying through the air on a broomstick with your cat listening to a 70’s rock song on the radio.
Finding a job and a room at a local bakery where you can both work at the bakery and set up your own business. Getting run down and tired and depressed because your job, which you thought you would like because it combines your passion with work, leaves you unsatisfied.
Having a sleepover with the weird artist lady that lives in the forest who tells you that your passion will come back, you just have to take a break from it. And of course saving the boy who has a crush on you from certain death because he hung onto a dirigible that went rogue.
Miyazaki creates a coming of age film that has more fantastical elements than any other you’ve seen and yet somehow it is the one that seems most true to our experiences growing up and becoming independent.
Kiki’s Delivery Service begins with a young witch, Kiki (Minami Takayama), deciding that she wants to commence her one year of witch training in a foreign town. Miyazaki never explains anything about witches in this world, only that they all take a trip to another town for a year for witch training (how else do you expect them to be able to develop their skills?).
She finds a beautifully drawn and colourful town, which seems to be modelled after a European seaside village, and begins her business where she delivers packages around the town on her broomstick.
In an age where every new film feels the need to over-explain every little detail, the experience of watching this film is almost weightless. Like you're floating in the ocean with a lifejacket and just letting it take you wherever it wants you to go. And this is certainly a feeling which seems true to what a coming of age film should encompass.
Because if you can no longer enjoy doing the things you love, how do you conquer the feelings of exhaustion and depression that life often brings. It is quite a deep exploration of individuality and what it means in the world that we live in.
Throughout the film Kiki is constantly experiencing setbacks. On the flight over alone she meets a fellow witch who seems to have it all figured out, then is hit by a storm which blows her way off course, then she lands into a carriage full of hay on a train.
Later, on her first job, she is met with a ferocious wind that sweeps her into the trees and into a birds nest full of babies. The birds attack her and she is forced to flee, yet she loses the toy she was meant to deliver.
And in her third job she arrives at a house to pick up a pie for delivery to find that the lady never cooked the pie. She helps bake the pie, then the rain soaks her on her flight. And then, in a highlight scene, when she arrives at the house the girl who is delivered the pie says she doesn’t even want it.
All of these setbacks of various sizes accurately reflect what real people have to deal with on a day to day basis. Often individuals work outrageously hard at tasks and come to realise that it may have been pointless or they aren’t rewarded or thanked as much as they deserve.
And although Miyazaki places importances throughout his films on the benefits of working hard and becoming more individual by not relying on others, Kiki’s Delivery Service is also about the dangers of working too much.
Kiki becomes exhausted, depressed and burnt out from all of her work. And she even begins to lose her witch powers because of it. This is obviously a metaphor for people who do what they love for money. As soon as their passion is monetised, they no longer feel the same way toward it (an obvious comparison is the writer who gets writers block).
In an attempt to heal, Kiki has a sleepover at Ursula’s house - the artist who lives in the forest. Ursula encapsulates the complete opposite of the life Kiki had been living in the town. Ursula lives on her own amongst nature and doesn’t seem to live the same life as everyone else. She loves to relax and paint and it is unclear how she makes money, but she seems content living a quiet life away from the chaos of the town.
Here Miyazaki brings up the idea of a rewarding life removed from society and the pressures it brings. And in turn brings up the interesting idea of pursing what you love without any hope of making money from it, but simply because it brings you pleasure.
Because if you can no longer enjoy doing the things you love, how do you conquer the feelings of exhaustion and depression that life often brings. It is quite a deep exploration of individuality and what it means in the world that we live in.
The film does all this whilst also presenting a collection of wholesome relatable moments which include: the husband in the bakery making Kiki a sign, the old ladies working with Kiki around the house, Tombo waiting in the rain and the old dog helping Kiki’s cat Jiji.
Kiki’s Delivery Service has everything: It’s exquisitely drawn, colourful, funny, heartfelt, deep in ideas and hopelessly relatable.
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