Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Secret of NIMH



Justin: It's wrong to take electricity from the farmer.
Nicodemus: My child, we can no longer live as rats. We know too much.

A while ago, I got an ominous and isolated tweet that from Adam Young that said, "Johnathan Brisby was killed today while helping with the plan." I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded very intriguing, so I followed the link on the tweet to the hauntingly beautiful music of this video:

This is a seriously freaky movie. It scared me as a child. I didn't remember very much about it except the feeling of prevailing gloominess and the terror and helplessness I felt as the frightened animals fled in panic as the tractor destroyed their homes. That is, until I watched it again tonight for the first time in maybe ... 20 years? As I immersed myself in the movie, I felt like I was facing my fears. My heart was pounding for the first half hour, until I finally got a hold of myself. I was utterly horrified when Mrs. Brisby lost Timmy's medicine, and I was moved by how much she missed her husband.
You can tell that the team of animators (who left Disney in the early 80's because they didn't like the way the studio was cutting corners on the animation quality) painstakingly crafted every detail of the gorgeous hand-drawn images.
In a world where motherhood is too often mocked, it's refreshing to see a film that exalts the role of a mother. Mrs. Brisby has guts! She's much braver than I think I ever could be. She loves her kids and fights to protect them.
Do we live in a way that reflects how much we know?

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