Review 7: A Letter to Momo

When I was little, one of my favourite films was a 30 minute animated adaptation of John Burningham’s beautiful children’s book Granpa. We never had an official copy, just the one Mum and Dad had taped off the tv. It shared space with Disney’s Robin Hood and was cut with bonkers 90’s adverts and grainy footage where the tape was wearing thin; I absolutely loved it. Granpa is about a little girl visiting her increasingly frail grandfather and going on adventures with him. One day, he isn’t there anymore and the girl is left to remember the exciting times they had together and the stories he told her. This might not seem like a particularly good time, (I mean who doesn’t love stories about bereavement?) but the artwork was simple and gorgeous, the music memorable and the story was bitter sweet in just the right way. It was also one of my first introductions to the idea that while I too might, one day, lose the important people in my life that didn’t mean I couldn’t remember them fondly and move on. Flash forward nearly three decades to me sat in my bedroom watching A Letter to Momo, and I am starting to experience some serious Granpa based deja vu. Here again was another tale of a young girl learning to face the tragic loss of a loved one, a parent this time, before finding a way to move on.

Apparently, stories that teach me how to grieve are my current jam.

Released in 2011 and written and directed by Hiroyuki Okiura, A Letter to Momo tells the story of Momo, an 11 year old girl who moves with her mother to the beautiful but quiet Shio Island on the Seto Inland Sea following the death of her father. After her last words to her father were deliberately hurtful, Momo’s last memento of him – an unfinished letter addressed to her and saying nothing else – leaves her guilt ridden and filled with uncertainty. Her mother, also silently struggling with her own grief, seems more distant than ever and the island itself is suffocating and restrictive. That is, until Momo begins to see the shadowy figures of three goblins (formed as traditional Japanese yokai) following her around, spying on her life and making a nuisance of themselves. What follows is a charming tale of learning to grieve and forgive oneself.

One of the major strengths of this film lies in it’s characters and emotional realism. Momo’s grief and guilt are all too understandable and watchers can only hope to never be placed in a similar position. As a result, we are lenient with this initially churlish character who refuses to engage with those around her, and are excited for her as she begins to heal and face her demons. The yokai themselves, Iwa, Kawa and Mame do have a tendency to grate a little, initially providing bit gags and little else. They do lighten the mood when called for, but for a large portion of the film they show little in the way of character development. However, since this is exactly how they are supposed to be, I think I can let it slide. Taken on a metaphorical level, the yokai are clearly manifestation of Momo’s own struggles instead of the celestial watchers they claim to be, and so it makes sense that their change is slow in coming. It is not until the climax of the film where Momo realises that she has to let go of the past to keep everything she still has that the yokai also become more rounded characters. Even without this meta narrative, however, A Letter to Momo still stands on it’s own feet as a modern day fairy story blending in traditional Japanese elements along the way.

As you might have guessed, I really enjoyed watching A Letter to Momo. It’s not even just a case of the nostalgias getting to me (although that probably didn’t hurt). The film is gorgeous to look at both for scenery and character design. It is also hand-drawn, an increasing rarity in modern anime as CGI rotoscoping becomes more cost effective if not necessarily nicer to look at. One of my fears going into this film was that I was going to end up watching a Studio Ghibli knock-off, and the cover art on the box did little to ally my fears when I saw the designs for the yokai – there was more than a little hint of Spirited Away about them. However, I think this is more to do with the animators drawing on the traditional look of the yokai than with any copying between art departments. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the character designs for the humans had a distinctive feel to them that were more realistically proportioned than something put forward by Ghibli, which meant the contrasted nicely with the designs of the films more fantastical creatures. This ultimately lent the whole film a faintly uncanny valley feeling which only added to the whole experience.

Because goblins in comedy hats don’t already give enough of an Uncanny Valley vibe.

While I do not think A Letter to Momo is by any means a perfect film, it is a little too long and the climax relies a little too heavily on standard anime whimsy for it to be that, it certainly is a good film, and one that I would recommend to anyone in the market for an emotionally mature animated move. Also, like Granpa before it, I think it is an important film. As a child, Granpa introduced me to the concept of bereavement and grieving by showing an old man enjoying his remaining time with his granddaughter, and consequently, as an adult, it actually played a part in the grieving process for my own Grandpa. A Letter to Momo tells the other part of the story: her father’s death was unexpected and violent, but still she learns to grieve and make peace with what has happened. I am older now and have more life experience than I did when I first saw Granpa, so I definitely appreciate films about bereavement on a different level than I did when I was five, but a part of me is still instinctively grateful that there are stories out there to show me how it’s done, not just for me but for the next person along the way who needs a little emotional guidance.