Maddie Butchko
As a child, I believed smart people read books instead of watching movies. I thought movies were just mindless screen-staring, while books required thinking and engagement with classics. I read constantly through late elementary and middle school, priding myself on my growing stack of novels as proof of intellect.
This changed recently as I found myself constantly retreating to bed. My body felt trapped by something heavier than normal fatigue. A persistent heaviness that dulled everything and made simple movements exhausting. Reading, once my comfort, became impossible. Opening books, my eyes would stare at unprocessed words. The struggle made me question my intelligence.
When I confessed to a friend about spending days in bed, she gently suggested “depression” — a word I still avoid saying aloud. Yet I laid horizontal for days, mindlessly scrolling through my phone, only deepening my stagnation.
During this low period, I remembered my friend Michael, who had always loved cinema. While I had secretly felt superior about my reading habits, he often shared fond memories of watching movies with his brothers. He had repeatedly recommended films, insisting they would make me feel better. I’d always politely agreed to try them someday but pushed his requests to the back of mind.
Over spring break, every action required tremendous effort. Initially, rest seemed justified after traveling and working, but those days in bed multiplied beyond what felt acceptable. One day, while lying in bed, I finally tried one of my friend’s movie recommendations. At first, movies were simply an alternative to mindless scrolling — something to do while horizontal that left me feeling less hollow than YouTube videos.
When I found myself in a strange limbo — not tired enough to sleep, not alert enough for productive work, yet desperate for engagement — movies filled this in-between space perfectly. I began enjoying films because they offered meaning: complete stories with characters, plot, beginnings, middles and ends. Unlike the stream of random videos on social media, movies provided continuity and substance I could actually remember afterward.
I started with “Princess Mononoke.” The fierce struggle between nature and human progress resonated with me immediately. The complexity of Lady Eboshi — both destructive and compassionate — showed me characters could contain contradictions, just as we do. There were no simple villains, only people with conflicting needs.
“Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” showed me courage and resilience in a poisoned world where understanding trumps destruction. “Howl’s Moving Castle” offered a portrait of love that values inner worth over appearances. “When Marnie Was There” spoke to loneliness and connection in ways that felt painfully familiar. Each film pulled me further into Studio Ghibli”s universe of intricate worlds.
“The Tale of Princess Kaguya” struck me particularly hard. The Japanese koto strings that accompanied her growth and inevitable departure created an unbearable beauty. As she struggled against expectations, I felt her frustration, pain and longing. The emotional journey wasn’t intellectual — it was visceral. The Japanese painting-style animations of her running, desperate to experience freedom before returning to the moon, captured a primal yearning I recognized in myself.
But it was “Whisper of the Heart” that found its way deepest into my consciousness. This story of Shizuku, a young writer wrestling with self-doubt as she attempts her first novel, mirrored my own creative anxieties. Her relationship with Seiji, a boy who dreams of becoming a violin maker in Italy, felt tender and inspiring — not competitive, but mutually supportive. When she discovers Seiji had checked out all the library books before her — his name stamped on each card — it stirred a memory of my own childhood, when library stamps were a small but meaningful ritual.
What struck me most about Shizuku was how deeply she questioned her worth. She believed in her dream, but also felt she wasn’t good enough — especially compared to Seiji, who seemed to have such clear direction. That quiet sense of inadequacy, of wondering if your work will ever measure up, echoed my own experience with writing this semester. The moment that stayed with me most was when Seiji’s grandfather handed her a raw gemstone, explaining that, while the stone had value, it still needed to be shaped and polished. His words gave her permission to be unfinished — to embrace the process rather than expecting perfection.
In “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” a young witch struggles with burnout and losing her magic. When she regains her ability to fly, it’s not through force or striving but through reconnecting with what initially made her love flying. This wasn’t some tidy lesson, but a moment that gave me vocabulary for my own experience that books, in my current state, couldn’t provide.
These films connected me to characters facing isolation, exhaustion and uncertainty, who continued forward not through superhuman strength but through small, daily choices. They showed worlds containing beauty and pain, suggesting that experiencing both was essential rather than optional. Completing each film became a small victory against inertia.
Through Studio Ghibli’s detailed animations — rain on leaves, steam rising from food, wind moving through grass — I rediscovered attention to small moments. I also appreciated the little scenes of characters putting on shoes, getting dressed, or eating meals together. These mundane actions I normally never thought about made the films feel more human. The unhurried pacing created space for reflection that frenetic media eliminates. The care in each frame reminded me that observation itself constitutes living.
It was only after many films that I realized what had happened: I discovered that what I’d always loved wasn’t specifically books, it was stories themselves. Movies provided these without the pressure I placed on reading. When reading, I felt obligated to analyze perfectly, to remember everything, to perform intelligence. With films, I could simply be present.
We should watch more movies as pathways to the stories that shape human experience. Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki once said, “I want to make films for children that make them want to live in this world.” This statement illuminated what these films were doing for me. They weren’t escapes from reality but windows revealing why reality, with all its complexity, deserves our attention. In these films, I found not an escape but a reason to remain present in my own world, even when that presence was limited to watching stories unfold from my bed.
Movies remind us that storytelling forms the backbone of humanity — how we make sense of chaos, connect with others and find meaning in difficulty. Through characters navigating different worlds, we see variations of human experience and recognize our struggles as universal.
Studio Ghibli films showed me life’s countless paths. Shizuku writing her novel, Kiki rediscovering her magic, Princess Kaguya resisting expectations. These journeys made me want to collect my own stories, to experience life as material for narrative rather than something to escape. So watch more movies. When our own story stalls, witnessing another’s journey reminds us that every narrative contains pauses before continuing.