Studio Ghibli’s first non-Japanese production is undoubtedly beautiful with lush handdrawn backgrounds, any frame of which could be hung. The wordless tale presents a shipwrecked man coming to terms with his plight and then follows him through the key stages of his life. Despite a certain lyricism, the content is too sleight to fill even its 80-minute running time. Adults may find enough to muse (it will almost certainly bore children) but I did not feel I had acquired any new insights by the end. Stripping away the repetition and filler, its beauty and haunting style could have been conveyed equally well in a short film with a fraction of its running time.

5/10