The Secret of NIMH
Jonathan Brisby is dead, his widow struggling and afraid for their children for whom she must now care alone, Teresa, Cynthia, Timothy and Martin, Timmy’s recent illness an ongoing worry as it has left him too sick to leave his bed and the time of ploughing approaches when they must leave their home in the fields of the Fitzgibbons’ farm before it is destroyed.
Mrs Brisby taking advice from the other animals, they send her to the fearsome Great Owl who tells her she must speak to Nicodemus, a wise old rat who leads a colony of his kind who have harnessed electricity and other technologies who were in debt to Jonathan who aided in their escape from the laboratory of the National Institute of Mental Health where experiments were conducted which enhanced their intelligence, bearers of the secret of NIMH.
It is rare for Eureka’s Masters of Cinema’s range to include animation, but director Don Bluth is a rarity himself, a former animator for Disney who worked on classics such as Robin Hood, The Rescuers and Pete’s Dragon before leaving to found his own studio, creating the fantasy sequences of Xanadu and the features An American Tale, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven and Titan A.E., though his debut was with The Secret of NIMH in 1982.
Set in a magical realm of talking rodents and birds and based on Robert C O’Brien’s 1971 novel Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, illustrated by Zena Bernstein, the renamed Mrs Brisby is voiced by Elizabeth Hartman with Dom DeLuise as the kindly crow Jeremy, Peter Strauss as Justin, an honourable rat, Derek Jacobi as sagely Nicodemus and John Carradine as the Great Owl, with early roles for pre-teen Wil Wheaton and Shannen Doherty among the Brisby children as well as John Hughes favourite Edie McLurg in a small role.
The Secret of NIMH originally released only a week before Steven Lisberger’s TRON, it could not be more different from that futuristic adventure which took animation in a new direction, the pastoral backgrounds of the farmhouse and waterwheel soothing in their traditional stylings and the characters designed to appeal to children, though at times it recalls the more abstract and nightmarish sequences of Fantasia and the red skies over the dramatic finale resemble similar scenes in Ralph Bakshi’s iconic adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
The animation detailed and dynamic, it is somewhat better than the sluggish script, but Eureka’s comprehensive edition makes up for any lack which the glow of nostalgia cannot overcome, restored from the studio master for Blu-ray with new and archive commentaries, a new interview with Bluth, an appreciation by Stacey Abbott, a video essay on the themes of motherhood in the film by Catherine Lester and an archive behind-the-scenes featurette in addition to the original trailer and a stills gallery.
The Secret of NIMH will be available on Blu-ray from Eureka from Monday 9th December
