Don Bluth, a legendary figure in the world of animation, may have, at least in part, come out of the Disney tradition, but looking at his first full length animated feature, The Secret of NIMH, one wouldn't think Disney. Based on the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien, Secret is a dark film, much darker than your typical Disney animated feature.
Something of a mystical and convoluted story, Secret is about some of the smaller animals who live on and around a farm. The main character is Mrs. Brisby, a mouse who must prepare her family to move as winter is ending and the farmer's plow is going to destroy her house. Mrs. Brisby, however, can't move as one of her children is too sick to go anywhere. She manages to secure some medicine to make her boy better, but he still needs several weeks to recuperate.
In an attempt to find a way to stave off the plow, Mrs. Brisby is told to go visit the rats as they can move things and that's when the story gets exceptionally weird. The rats are super-intelligent rats who have been given injections by the folks at the National Institute of Mental Health and who then escaped and have been happily living in the rose bush on the farm.
Trust me, it works much better than it sounds as though it might, and once it gets into rat politics it gets even better. Without delving into too many of the specifics, some of the rats are quite happy with their life and stealing from others while a different group of rats, and the rats' leader, Nicodermus, feel as though they ought to live in a self-sustaining manner.
The Secret of NIMH is a fantastical, dark, interesting, animated feature. However, it is also a movie that raises more questions than it answers and some younger viewers may be frustrated by that. Rather than having a clear opening and closing, Secret drops you off in the middle of a story, a story in which so much has already happened. There is a brief flashback sequence which helps clue the audience in a little more, but which doesn't lay everything bare. Between that and the distinctly dark nature of the movie—and right up until the closing scene it is a very dark movie—this is not one for the youngest members of the viewing audience no matter how cute the mice might be and how funny Jeremy, the crow, looks and acts.
On the other hand, for those who care to examine it, the story is exceedingly interesting and can truly cause one to think about not the way in which we pursue knowledge as much as the way in which we interact with our environment. It is also, it must be said, a beautiful and brilliantly animated feature. There are not only interesting camera angles and shots that you wouldn't necessarily see in a typical animated movie, but it is exceptionally well realized and the darker scenes (like the plow going on its run) are mesmerizingly great.
Article comments
1 - barbara barnett
How disappointing! I love that movie and it's gorgeously animated. The voice acting is top rate and there's as much tension in it as any heroic live-action tale. Would have loved to see the Blu-ray really do well by it.