Secret of NIMH
Nitish is lukewarm on this movie because it's happy, Mark loves it because it's sad. Or something. We're not really sure.
A 1982 dark adventure animated movie by Don Bluth. We watched it on Youtube (it is officially free)!
Mark
I have mentioned before, dear reader, that I once wanted to be an animator. When I was fifteen I decided to get serious about it, and one of the first things I did was buy a book by Don Bluth. Sure, that seriousness only lasted two weeks (shocking plot twist - drawing is hard) but my intrigue in animation has not since faded, and neither has my fascination with this animation director.
So when I saw that Bluth’s first film, “Secret of NIMH” was legally released on YouTube for free, I was overcome with excitement. I watched this film when I was young, believing it to be a masterpiece, and now I figured this was my chance to see if this assumption held up. Bear with me, reader, this will be a very different kind of review - the movie is most intriguing when you consider the context around it.
“Secret of NIMH”—based loosely on the novel, “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH”—follows a mouse named Mrs. Brisby (her name was changed to avoid a potential trademarking dispute with Frisbee discs). She is a timid widow caring for her four children - one of her sons, however, is ill and unable to leave the home. Worst yet, the farmer is plowing things up, meaning she would have to move her family to a safer place and risk her son’s death. Desperate for another way, she ventures out to meet with the mysterious rats of NIMH… superpowered, hyper-intelligent rats who’ve escaped the research organization and are now on the verge of forming their own society. There, she discovers old buried secrets about her late husband, and uncovers her own heroic spirit.
Depending on who you ask, some will either consider Don Bluth one of the most skilled animators of all time, or one of the medium’s greatest disappointments… Some consider him animation’s unsung hero, others a moustache-twirling villain. These differences in opinion are to be expected. He has such an unusual role in animation history. Bluth was a former Disney animator who worked on films like “Robin Hood” and “The Rescuers” in that bleak period after Walt’s death. Feeling as though the studio had lost its touch, he left to form his own, competing studio. He also took nine other animators with him. Worst yet, he insisted on releasing many of his movies on the same opening night as Disney’s films, forcing them to compete. This once great studio was left presumably in a state similar to the shocked Pikachu meme for all throughout the 80s as Bluth was at the top of his game, releasing films like “An American Tail,” “Land Before Time,” and yes, “Secret of NIMH”... that is until Disney released one little movie you might’ve heard of. It’s called “The Little Mermaid.”
Oh boy, I should actually talk about the film proper, shouldn’t I? Pretty much all this goes on to say that 1982 was a fickle time in animation, and there were many competing visions of what animation could be after Walt’s death - “Secret of NIMH” could very well have redefined the medium.
It is definitely not your typical Disney movie. The environment, specifically the rose bush where the rats of NIMH reside, is dark and twisted. Many of our character designs, even of some of our heroes, appear grotesque, and act at least a bit murderey. Death is drizzled in this movie like salad dressing. When our heroes get cut, they bleed. However this is still very much a kid’s film, and the movie never leaves behind its comic reliefs (even if, regarding the f***-boy crow, we might wish they did), but the departure from medium norms is clear. If things continued on in this direction, the art of animation would be a far darker place than it is now.
And, I mean, we already have 2019’s “Cats,” so that’s saying a lot.
But in “Secret of NIMH” there is a direction to its darkness, and that is worth appreciating. Nearly everything in this journey revolves around Mrs. Brisby, seen initially as a timid widow of a once legendary warrior, proving herself to be just as heroic as her late spouse. All these gothic sights, these deformities, and these dangerous personalities in the film emphasize how frightening and strange the outside world is to her - the world itself is designed so that we walk in her shoes. This creates a level of intimacy with the protagonist that I feel even long after seeing this movie, and it truly makes a lot of the tension and adventure feel tangible. Don Bluth has once stated that he believes children can handle anything in a movie as long as there is a happy ending… I’m not sure if I believe that, but it certainly has its narrative advantages. By being able to push his protagonist so hard, we are able to feel all the happier when she makes it through the other end. This is something I now realize I’ve tried to mimic with my own works. This is an excellent hero’s journey.
Sure, this is not as perfect of a movie as I remembered it being. There are some unnecessary characters that drag out the plot, the pacing is a tiny bit off (and we could have spent more time in the rosebush), there are plot lines that feel disconnected from one another, and there are some plot points that as a kid I assumed were mystical and mysterious, but now strike me as a bit deus-ex-machina-esque. Though, there is a lot of good to be found in “Secret of NIMH” - a lot of unique good you will not find in any other animated movie. And I believe it is a must-watch movie, if only because of the insight it gives into an alternate-timeline version of animation, in which the Disney Renaissance had never existed.
This was, of course, not the timeline we have now. After the Disney Renaissance happened, Bluth’s films began to flop hard, one after another (the only arguable exception being “Anastasia” - popular in its own ways but it is basically a copy of Disney’s stuff instead of being its own thing). His studio eventually closed down around the year 2000. Despite these shortcomings, however, he is still known as one of the best animation directors to reach the silver screen, and I, for one, believe he deserves this recognition. For a while, animation was a different, scarier place. I think I like that.
I would like to mention one more, fairly unrelated thing. Stephen Spielberg, due to creative differences with Don Bluth, made his own animation studio under Universal Studios, where they were a hairline away from adapting the now infamous musical “Cats.” The animation studio closed, however, before anything was made of it. Fortunately for us, the studio already bought the rights to the musical, and in large part led to the decision to make the modern day fever-dream we have now. So, yes, in a very indirect way, we have the Bluth-meister to thank for 2019’s “Cats.” There was no feasible place to include this tidbit in the review, but I thought it was worth mentioning!
Nitish
Mark has a lot of thoughts on the “Secret of Nimh.” I, uh, don’t. It’s a charming enough children’s movie with nice animation about the secret lives of a bunch of animals. It has a dastardly evil rat, a handsome swashbuckling rat, and a wise old rat. It has a great owl. It has a moral lesson. It has the heroic Mrs. Brisby, a mouse, pushing through a bunch of trials and tribulations to save her son. It’s pretty standard children’s animated movie fare, honestly. It’s good! It’s charming! I’d recommend it if you’re feeling nostalgic or want a happy sort of pick-me-up movie, but I didn’t get a whole lot out of it. So that’s all I got.
I feel like Ferris Bueller chiding the audience after the end-credits scene (a gag that will never work again thanks to the evil machinations of Marvel) but seriously, that’s all I got.
Addendum: Mark (actually not as dashing as you might expect) criticizes my referring to this movie as a “happy sort of pick-me-up movie,” arguing in our Slack chat (join the Daily if you want to be part of our cool inside jokes) that this is a movie where “[Mrs. Brisby] goes to a sophisticated colony of hyper-intelligent rats debating the means of being truly self-sufficient from the humans who've granted them these abilities.” But I would contend that this is an animated movie where a mouse saves her family from a lawnmower with the magical power of “courage of the heart.”
Mark’s Addendum to the Previous Addendum: Mark (the ever-so-dashing and brilliant no matter what the haters say) maintains that the lawnmower is merely the inciting incident (and probably a metaphor or something) and the true intrigue lies in the subtext of the journey. There are many interesting discussions to be had about the rat colony. One could ponder the nature of the unknown, and whether or not we are witnessing magic or science. Is there a difference? There is also the point on whether or not the rats, being hyper-intelligent, are now given any added responsibility regarding those around them. These are all here, just not explicitly stated. Though he admits the “courage of the heart” thing is pretty accurate.
Nitish’s Addendum to Mark’s Addendum to the Previous Addendum: Nitish (as dashing as you hoped Mark would be, although maybe not now considering that he hasn’t had a haircut since December) concedes that there are interesting things to discuss about the rat colony, but the presence of depth in a certain area doesn’t mean that the tale as a whole isn’t a happy pick-me-up. I think that it’s a bit of a false equivalence, sort of like saying that “The Office” is an allegory for the way that opinions on geopolitics are formed by elite cues because of that one episode where Oscar and Michael argued about China. There’s smart writing in “Secret of Nimh,” and a well-developed world, but the writers don’t seem particularly concerned with making these questions important in the movie, and are certainly happy to leave them in the background.
Mark’s Big Bang Addendum to End All Addendums: Mark (who looks real good with long hair and is currently single) argues mostly that the movie is not primarily a happy pick-me-up movie and is criticizing the lack of other descriptors. Mark might also argue how keeping these themes in the background does wonders to make the experience transformative with age, giving children and adults alike something different to sink their teeth into, though he has forgotten what we were talking about and chooses to stop invading Nitish’s article now.
Nitish’s Addendum that Creeps Back in the Dark of Night and Gets the Last Laugh: Nitish (who needs to shave) disagrees and thinks that the movie is primarily a happy pick-me-up movie. He agrees that there is stuff of value to discuss with respect to the rat colony, but the themes that Mark picks up on aren’t explicated enough in the movie. Nitish has grown weary of talking about this movie, and is going to stop adding addendums. Surely, Nitish thinks, the novelty of this gag has worn off, and even referring to it in a self-aware way may not be enough to convince the reader of this discussion’s merit.
This article was originally published in the Stanford Daily.
Image courtesy of MGM/UA.