Little Emily review – A tender and moving study of the fragility of early childhood | film

TGently animated and beautifully animated by filmmakers Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, it’s a poignant and poignant study of early childhood. How fragile it is, and how strong you feel to get through it or get through it. It is based on the autobiographical novel “The Rain Person” by Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb, which was published in 2000.

Louise Charpentier voices Amelie, a young girl living in Kobe, Japan, with her Belgian family in the late 1960s; My mom, dad, older brother and sister. Until the age of three, she was in a constant state of coma, but was miraculously freed from it by a terrible earthquake; But she appears feisty and almost feral, much to the despair of her parents. That is, until her elegant grandmother, Claude (Cathy Cerda), comes to visit and gives her a piece of delicious, psychedelic white Belgian chocolate, causing Amelie to blossom into a beautiful, receptive child who adores her Japanese nanny, Nishio-san (Victoria Grosbois).

But there are problems: the icy, distant landlady Kashima-san (Yumi Fujimori) secretly hates her Western tenants — and despises Nishio-san for working with them — because of her unresolved feelings about Allied bombings during the war. And what will happen when Amelie’s grandmother has to leave? And when the entire family has to leave Japan, which Amelie now calls her beloved home?

The animation itself is, in its own way, a very charming mix of European and Japanese styles, and there’s a lovely final sequence, when Amelie looks back on her younger self in various scenes around the idyllic house and garden.