The Film excerpted from FILM FREAK CENTRAL presents The Films of Hayao Miyazaki by Walter Chaw

Betraying a new maturity in not only animation but also score, Kiki's Delivery Service is a puberty fable whose conceit, if taken far enough, eventually suggests that the magic of childhood lost in adolescence can be regained through faith, courage, and love. Kiki, as tradition dictates, leaves home at the age of thirteen to find her fortune as "town witch" to a town without one. Her only learned skill that of flight, she begins the titular courier service while living with what appears to be an interracial couple in an island amalgamation of several western cities. Her black cat Jiji the only nod to any sort of Disney convention (he talks, but only to her and only when she's magical, at that), the picture is marked by a delicious bittersweet quality as the story moves from parents losing a child to adolescence through to that child finding--and losing--first love in a strange city. Between this and My Neighbor Totoro, Miyazaki's hallmarks emerge with a clear intentionality--he evolved into an auteur with a lovely fable cycle about overcoming the uncertainties of growing up in particular and life in general. Though not nearly so adept and consistently enthralling as My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service is a children's film that gives lie, again, to the western belief that stories for kids need to be insipid, trite, and unwatchable.

The DVD
A distaff Harry Potter substitute (and coincidentally hitting stores the same time as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), Kiki's Delivery Service arrives on DVD in a 2-disc set from Buena Vista that's available individually or in a three-pack with Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky (a.k.a. Laputa: Castle in the Sky). The 1.82:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer--less severely windowboxed than Spirited Away's--is without significant flaws; colours are pure and vivid, and the line-work is free of halos and other artifacts. Although non-descriptly listed as a "Japanese" alternative to the "English Dolby Digital 5.1" option, the film's original soundtrack is presented here in DD 5.1 as well. While both mixes are exquisitely detailed, each betrays the 1989 film's age in a dearth of rear-channel imaging and LFE information. As a purist, I once again preferred to watch Kiki's Delivery Service in Japanese (with English subtitles, natch)--the American dub sets quite a different tone for the picture by recasting Kiki's effeminate cat Jiji with the voice of Phil Hartman, for example.

Pixar's John Lasseter provides a video introduction in which he tells us that Kiki's Delivery Service is wonderful; though I love Lasseter's work (Toy Story 2 throbs with genius), these intros reek of cultural arrogance, an Anglo personality validating Asian art. (If you've bought the DVD, isn't he preaching to the converted?) Other extras on the first platter include a "Behind the Microphone" segment (5 mins.) showing a 'tween-aged Dunst (whose nickname, Kiki, may have started with this gig), the late Hartman, Matthew Lawrence, and Janeane Garofalo in the recording booth, plus a 10-minute block of Japanese trailers for Kiki's Delivery Service. Seven in all, the very last of these previews is a series of camera moves around an intricate mural. The second disc contains a version of Kiki's Delivery Service reminiscent of the "Work in Progress" Beauty and the Beast, as it's the entire film in sequential storyboard form; a better keepsake than a viewing experience, it plays with the finished soundtrack in Japanese or English.-Bill Chambers