From its opening image of a lone seagull soaring through a gentle city snowfall to its hauntingly beautiful cloud-drenched finale, Korean director Seong-kang Lee`s gorgeously animated feature film MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL MARI fashions a mournful meditation on the end of childhood. Living in an isolated fishing village, pre-teen Nam-woo is a lonely boy dealing with his father`s death, his mother`s new boyfriend, and the impending departure of his best friend, Jun-ho, who is moving to Seoul. When Nam-woo finds a magical marble in a toy shop, he is given a chance to escape his troubles via an abandoned lighthouse that serves as a gateway to an ethereal fantasy world populated by lush vegetation, billowy clouds, and a white-haired girl named Mari who floats through the air and wordlessly offers hope and comfort. An elegiac evocation of the often difficult transition to adulthood, Lee`s poetic fairy tale is sure to vivify the world of Korean anime with its truly visionary style and subject matter.
