Of broomsticks and anime fun at The Palace Theater
For a long time, fans of film animation have been extolling the fantastic anime films that have been coming out of Japan. The films have run the gamut from massive projects such as 1988’s Akira on through television adaptations on Pokémon and other game-related stories.
But there is far more to anime than just strange animals and sci-fi epics. Such as Mary and The Witch’s Flower, based on Mary Stewart’s 1971 classic children’s book “The Little Broomstick”.
Mary is an ordinary young girl stuck in the country with her Great-Aunt Charlotte and seemingly no adventures or friends in sight. She follows a mysterious cat into the nearby forest, where she discovers an old broomstick and the strange Fly-by-Night flower, a rare plant that blossoms only once every seven years and only in that forest.
Together the flower and the broomstick whisk Mary above the clouds and far away to Endor College—a school of magic run by headmistress Madam Mumblechook and the brilliant Doctor Dee.
But there are terrible things happening at the school, and, when Mary tells a lie, she must risk her life to try to set things right.
This action-packed film is full of jaw-dropping imaginative worlds, ingenious characters, and the stirring, heartfelt story of a young girl trying to find a place in the world.
See it this Saturday at 8 p.m. at The Palace Theater at 818 Georgia Ave. for a onetime special screening.