Mark Reviews Movies: MAQUIA: WHEN THE PROMISED FLOWER BLOOMS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 26, 2018

Old worlds of fantasy and evolving nations of history collide in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, a beautiful and melancholic story about myth and reality, death and what it means to live, and the inherent contradictions of parenthood. It's the feature film debut of director Mari Okada, an apparent mainstay in contemporary anime as a writer. She wrote the screenplay for this film, too, and it's a bit of a shock to learn that the story is an original work, not based on any pre-existing source material. There's a richness of vision to this tale, of a nearly immortal woman who finds her life entwined in the lives of mere mortals, that seems far more intricate than what we actually see unfold on screen.

The title, of course, has been changed and slightly diminished in translation. For a sense of Okada's tonal approach to this story, it's best to allow the original title speak for itself: "Let's Decorate the Promised Flower in the Morning of Farewells." If the English-language version of the title evokes a sense of mystery, then the original conveys Okada's poetic yet straightforward sense of hope, loss, and lament.

To be sure, this is a deeply felt presentation of the well-worn paradoxes and contradictions of immortality. It's a gift, to be blessed with a long life in which so much can happen, and it's also a curse, to be condemned to seeing the world change, the people die before an immortal's own time, and how little effect such a person actually has on the course of history.

That's the condition of the Iolph people, who live in some unseen city far from the sight and knowledge of mortals. They spend their long days and longer lives weaving cloth called "Hibiol," which seems to act in a way akin to the thread of the Fates in Greek mythology. They keep records of history and life but take no part in such matters—a lonely existence that has given them the name "the Clan of the Separated."

In this world is Maquia (voice of Manaka Iwami), who is in no way unique or special among her own kind, except that she's an orphan and directly serves the Iolph's elder Racine (voice of Miyuki Sawashiro). Her best friend is the rambunctious Leilia (voice of Ai Kayano), who has far more freedom than Maquia to do more than to weave and serve.

There's an attack by the army of a kingdom of mortals, who have been searching for the tangible forms of the old legends. They have found dragons, which are quite useful in combat and in instilling fear in their rival nations, and now, they have discovered a race that lives for hundreds of years. If the mortal kingdom can discover the secret to that long life, then they will be as gods among men. They kill most of the Iolph and take Leilia prisoner to be married off to the king's son.

Maquia escapes on a dragon that has gone mad and finds herself in an encampment. There, she discovers the dead body of a woman, still holding tight to a baby boy. Maquia takes the baby and decides to raise him as her own son.

Okada's sense of time in telling this story is always fleeting—always moving with unrelenting speed. Maquia and the boy, whom she names Ariel (voice of Miyu Irino), live on a farm with a single mother named Mido (voice of Rina Satô) and her two sons. No sooner is the baby taking his first steps before he grows up in front of our eyes, playing on the farm and learning about death from the family dog. No sooner is he a boy, being teased for his affection and devotion to his mother, before he's vowing to protect Maquia in the capital of the kingdom, where the two flee, lest Maquia's lack of aging becomes apparent to the locals. At a certain point, Ariel has to stop referring to Maquia as his mother, since they both look to be about the same age.

That's the central conflict here—between how Maquia feels for Ariel and how Ariel gradually rejects the woman who was his mother in every way but genetic. The film gives us grand visions, of the castle town as it undergoes an industrial revolution as the years pass and of a real sense of the wonder of the natural world, as well as the worlds and beings of legend. There's also multilayered plot that involves an Iolph rebellion to save Leilia, Leilia's own sense of loneliness after her husband rejects both her and their daughter, Racine's increasing sense of vengeance against the mortals who destroyed her people, and a great siege executed by the neighboring kingdoms, who don't trust what this nation is doing with the supernatural.

Through it all, though, Okada maintains an intimate understanding of the relationship between Maquia and Ariel. Maquia is undeniably a mother to the boy, even though she knows two truths: that she is, in reality, little more than a stranger to him and that the boy will die well before she does.

Does the first truth really matter, considering that Ariel is no different than any human child? He loves his mother and then, like with all children, grows into his own person—a stranger, in a way, to the mother who believes she knows him more than anyone else could. The story here may contain elements of fantasy, but its central concerns are grounded in heartbreaking reality: that a mother—even if she knows more about the inevitable pain of the world than her child—must act strong, that a child will someday become a stranger, and that the ultimate paradox is living fully with and despite the knowledge of death.

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms confronts all of these matters and does so with confidence in its storytelling and a lack of fear in taking this material to its inevitable end. This is an assured, thoughtful, and emotionally resonant debut for Okada.

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