Goodbye, Don Glees!
Three boys embark on a summer of adventure in Atsuko Ishizuka’s coming-of-age anime.
Back in 1986 Rob Reiner made the classic film Stand by Me. That perceptive study of childhood friendship saw four boys on an adventurous mission but it also took account of how in later life they would be able to look back on this time of closeness as something that would not endure with each going his own way as they grew up. I was instantly reminded of that film when viewing Goodbye, Don Glees! because it has very similar concerns even if this piece is set in Japan and features three youths who, being fifteen or sixteen years of age, are a bit older than the equivalent figures in Stand by Me. A more striking difference is the fact that Goodbye, Don Glees! is an animated film and that comparison is one that for me counts against this new work.
The first half of Goodbye, Don, Glees! has a storyline which, despite the use of animation, is very much centred on a realistic portrait of the activities of the boys. Roma and his best friend Toto have grown up in a village where they have bonded but Toto’s schooling has now taken him away to Tokyo from whence he has just returned on a visit. Meanwhile, Roma has invited another boy, Drop, to join the Don Glees - that being the name that had been adopted by Roma and Toto when choosing to be independent of others of their age who were not welcoming. When the same attitude leads to this band of three not being invited to share in a firework display, they readily go their own way with fireworks of their own but those that they purchase prove to be faulty and fizzle out. Despite that, rumours spread online suggesting that their actions may have been responsible for starting a forest fire and the trio set off into that area in the hope of finding a drone which they had sent up and which may have taken photographs that would prove their innocence.
The episodic adventures that occur during their quest establish the contrasting characters of the three friends, but in doing so it felt that this was an area which was far more suited to live-action cinema than to animation. In contrast to intensely serious animated films such as last year’s Flee which drew on actual events and were capable of making you forget that you were watching animation, this film never achieves that and instead makes one wish that the story was being told with live actors. That is not say that the techniques used are weak. The filmmaker, Atsuko Ishizuka, has built up her career at the well-established Japanese animation studio Madhouse and, now that she has proved herself capable of writing and directing a cinema feature, her talent is not to be doubted. Nevertheless, her skill is most evident here in such scenes as those portraying the forest setting and the impact of the firework display.
Rather self-consciously the film sets up a message about the need for people to aim high in life in the sense of seeking a treasure, something that represents not wealth but what is most valuable in enabling them to realise their potential as individuals and to give meaning to their lives. If the quasi-philosophical talk can seem rather imposed, the film is on firmer ground in portraying a kind of youthful innocence and shared bonding which will pass as greater awareness of life brings about its own changes. However, the last quarter of the film involves a plane flight to Iceland and then depicts events that follow the arrival there. What we see includes an emphasis on a red phone booth near a waterfall which had been glimpsed earlier when Drop had talked of his memories. In that context it was not entirely inappropriate for the image to seem remote from reality but in its later stages the film embraces stylisation in a way that makes the narrative come to feel almost fantasy-like.
Goodbye, Don Glees! will be shown both in dubbed and in subtitled versions and I saw the latter which helps to sustain the Japanese character of the work. It has clearly been made with dedication and I hope that others will more readily adapt to its mixture of styles than I did. The switch away from the lighter tone of the earlier scenes and the fact that the development becomes darker while also seeming less realistic make for a film which is never as sure-footed as Stand by Me. However, others may find themselves able to accept more wholeheartedly what this film has to offer.
Original title: Gubbai, Don Gurîzu.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Voice Cast (Original Version): Natsuki Hanae, Yûki Kaji, Ayumu Murase, Kana Hanazawa, Rino Sashihara, Atsushi Tamura. Voice Cast (English Version): Adam McArthur, Jonathan Leon, Nick Wolfhard, Barbara Goodson, Victoria Grace, Alan Lee, Stephanie Sheh, Laura Megan Stahl.
Dir Atsuko Ishizuka, Pro Madhouse Studio, Screenplay Atsuko Ishizuka, Ph Yūki Kawashita, Character Des Takahiro Yoshimatsu, Ed Kashiko Kimura, Music Yoshiaki Fujisawa.
Madhouse-Anime Limited.
95 mins. Japan. 2021. US Rel: 14 September 2022. UK Rel: 30 November 2022. Cert. 12A.
