I Forgive You: When Marnie Was There

      Sometimes forgotten memories of the past can return to a person and help them come to terms with where they are now. Based on the book by Joan G. Robinson, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's Studio Ghibli film When Marnie Was There is one of those stories; a seemingly sad tale with an unexpected turn. Spoilers Ahead

    Once upon a time, there was a twelve year old girl named Anna. She has a low self esteem and suffers from asthma. She is also an orphan living with foster parents since she was around five. Her foster mother, Yoriko, notices that Anna is not necessarily happy and doesn't seem to show much emotion. After an asthma attack, Anna is sent away from her home in Sapporo to spend the summer out in the country with Yoriko's relatives, the Oiwas, in hopes of becoming a little healthier and a little happier. The Oiwas are jolly people and kind to Anna. Here Anna explores and finds a mansion in the marsh nearby, which looks to familiar to her. The marsh house is abandoned and Anna is told that the house used to be "a fancy vacation home for some foreigners." But on some nights, Anna sees that the house lights are on and that there's a mysterious young girl with blonde hair and loose curls living there. Anna eventually meets this girl and finds that her name is Marnie. Marnie is not in a particularly happy situation: She's lived in the marsh house since she was two and her parents spend most of their time away on business while Marnie is left alone and treated unkindly by Nan and the two maids. In a short time Marnie and Anna become very close, even though Anna only sees Marnie sometimes and the marsh house is still empty on most days. Will Anna become a happier person and discover who Marnie truly is? 

     Before we meet Marnie, we get a lot of time to get to know Anna. She's quiet and thinks poorly of herself. So when we do meet Marnie, the audience knows almost immediately that she is not quite like Anna. Marnie is outgoing and playful, and appears to have confidence. Like Anna, she is thoughtful. In her experiences with Marnie, Anna becomes more open and even laughs and smiles with Marnie. Anna is also able to make friends with another person and slowly shows more confidence and has more to say. Anna thinks that Marnie is the friend she never had, but in truth, Marnie is the friend that Anna had in her early life. At the end of the film we learn that the Marnie that Anna has been seeing and interacting with is Anna's deceased grandmother in her youth. After her parents died, Anna went to live with her grandmother Marnie, who loved her only grandchild very much. Sadly, she fell ill and passed away. Why was Anna seeing young Marnie? Was she a ghost or a hallucination? We don't know. What we do know is that Anna was reliving events in young Marnie's life, such as her ordeal in the silo. We also know that Marnie told stories about her life to Anna when she was little. Being at Marnie's childhood home may be why these things after a long time come back to Anna and why she was open to Marnie, why they were so close in a short time, and also why Marnie was able to help Anna come out of her shell a little bit and be a little happier. 

    When Marnie Was There is a story about acceptance.When Marnie was young, she greatly feared the silo not far from her home because of the stories the maids had told her about it. Marnie had attempted to face her fear, but was unsuccessful and was rescued by her sweetheart Kazuhiko. Anna relives this event with Marnie and wakes up in the silo alone with Marnie gone. Because of this Anna believes that she had left her there. She asks why Marnie would betray her and leave her behind. This whole part of the story is symbolic to how an older Marnie had become ill and died when Anna was still very young, thus "leaving" her. Watching Marnie leave the silo with Kazuhiko can also be symbolic of her dying and being reunited with Kazuhiko, who had died long before Anna was born. Marnie later begs Anna for her forgiveness from her window in the marsh house. Anna forgives Marnie because she loves her friend, and Marnie fades into the sunlight as though her spirit was now at peace and had accepted everything that had happened to her in her life. Anna's forgiveness towards Marnie is not only for being left at the silo, but in truth, for her grandmother passing away. After this Anna begins to truly accept that yes, her grandmother had died, and yes, her parents had died too. On top of knowing that her foster parents receive money because of her, Anna learns that none of this means that she is unloved. She makes peace and embraces who she is, because she was reminded of and came to terms with a time when Marnie was there.

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