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Mrs. Brisby, a mild-mannered mother mouse with a plan to move Heaven and Earth (or at least her house and home) to save her family from Farmer Fitzgibbon's plow! Along the way she gets some help from a lovelorn Crow, a busybody neighbor mouse and a fearsome Great Owl. Unfortunately, Mrs. Brisby will need an engineering miracle to hoist her home, and for that she must face a mysterious rat, fend off a ferocious cat and claim a magic amulet! But when Mrs. Brisby discovers the astounding secret of NIMH...it could change her life forever! This timeless tale of love, courage and determination will transport the whole family into an enchanting world where the bravest hearts live in the meekest of mice. (official distributor synopsis)
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Don Bluth’s peak film is an entirely exceptional work in the context of American animated films for children. Though Bluth and his collaborators made several changes in comparison with the source work (which lacks the fantastical elements and charmingly burlesque moments), they superbly captured its essential strength, which consists in the main character. In The Secret of NIMH, that main character is not the typical man or boy who embarks on great adventures and faces many dangers, thus demonstrating his courage and fearlessness, while adopting traditional values and setting out on the path to adulthood. Robert C. O’Brien, author of the book on which the film is based, made the central character a mother whose stable motivation is her effort to save her children. It is surprising, or rather simply a sad consequence of patriarchy, that such a powerful and meaningful motif appears only sporadically in fairy tales and adventure stories. Despite their effort to make the original story accessible to children through straightforward attractions, the filmmakers made excellent use of the character’s potential and even subordinated the visual rendering of the film to it. The narrative consistently emphasises the fact that Mrs. Brisby finds herself outside of her familiar environment and suppresses her fear because she is driven by her concern for her children. Her actions are not an expression of reckless courage or defiance of traditional heroes, as they are always based on a visible combination of fear and determination. After all, the fantasy elements incorporated into the film, differentiating it from the book, do not seem inappropriate thanks to the fact that they serve primarily to make these attributes of the main character more palpable. In the same way, the visual aspect ingeniously balances the ghostly bleakness of the world into which Mrs. Brisby ventures with the warm and bright colours associated with the safety of home – see the shots in which she literally represents a light defying the darkness as she is surrounded by bleak scenery with a threat of danger. Add to this a complex parallel storyline about man’s inconsiderate relationship to animals, or rather to nature and the environment, which is developed through the motif of a community of escaped lab rats that have gained intelligence under the influence of the experiments they have undergone, and the result is a captivating epic film about the adventure one little mouse that is essentially educational, with the ability to spur a discussion between children and their parents.
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A pleasantly different cartoon that I'll definitely like to watch again sometime. It has an imaginative story, whose main character is a caring mouse mother from the family and not any of her teenage offspring, it is unusually suspenseful and action-packed at times (a fight with a cat) and even scary (an owl), and in the finale blood flows and people die... Nowadays, such a film would certainly stand up to scrutiny, as both children and adults will find something to enjoy, and the latter need not be ashamed of watching a "fairytale". And lest I forget, The Secret of NIMH has a great score by Jerry Goldsmith.
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