The Secret of NIMH

Based on Robert C. O’Brien’s 1971 children’s novel ‘Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH’, this enchanting anime from 1982 ticks all the right boxes and will no doubt delight young and old. With an ensemble cast including Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, John Carradine and Hermione Baddeley among many others, whose voice talents lend their animated characters the required personality, this fantasy adventure won the Saturn Award in the category ‘Best Animated Film’ and it’s easy to see why.

The animations and backdrop painting are simply gorgeous and really quite sophisticated, while the plot is also surprisingly mature, given that it’s all based on a children’s novel although for the film, Mrs. Frisby becomes Mrs. Brisby. She is a widowed field mouse who, together with her three children Teresa, Martin and Timothy, lives in a cinder block on a farm owned by the Fitzgibbons family. Like every year, ploughing time approaches and for safety reasons, Mrs. Brisby wants to move her family away from the field, however, there’s one obstacle stopping her: tiny Timothy has suddenly fallen ill and is bed-bound, so the family cannot move. Visiting Mr. Ages, a friend of her late husband, he asks Brisby all sorts of questions about Timothy’s symptoms and comes to the conclusion that he is suffering from pneumonia, meaning he needs several more weeks of complete rest. Ages hands Brisby some medicine before she sets off on her journey home. En route, she encounters a friendly but clumsy crow named Jeremy and they both save each other from the clutches of Dragon, the cat who belongs to the Fitzgibbons family.

Back home, Brisby proceeds to prepare the herbal concoction handed to her by Ages in the hope that Timothy will make a speedy recovery but there’s bad news in store: the owner of the Fitzgibbons farm has decided to start ploughing earlier than usual and that’s worrying because Brisby still can’t move her family out of the field as a result of Timothy’s pneumonia. Plan B is called for, but what exactly does another plan encompass? Well, crow Jeremy takes her to meet the Great Owl (very tricky in itself) and the owl is quite frightening in its demeanour, but not as frightening as the huge spider about to attack Brisby… whose life is saved at the last minute when the gigantic owl steps on the spider and squashes it. The owl then informs Brisby of a colony of rats who live beneath a rose bush on the Fitzgibbons farm and mentions Nicodemus, the colony’s mystical leader. Entering the rose bush, Brisby is chased away by Brutus, a very unfriendly guard rat but Ages (where does he come from?) sees to it that Brisby re-enters the rats’ abode with the aid of electricity and technology only humans could come up with. Another guard rat, Justin, is friendly and helpful and takes her to Nicodemus, who cuts an impressive figure. Nicodemus reveals that all the rats in the colony, including himself, are special rats because years ago, they were part of some experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and those experiments boosted their intelligence and made them capable of speech as well as extending their lifespan by slowing down the ageing process.

At the same time, the rats have come to realise that in order to carry on with their sophisticated lifestyle, they would need to depend on humans and human inventions, such as tapping into the electricity reserve and so on…meaning, they will never be truly free and worse, sooner or later humans will come after them. Therefore, they too plan to leave the Fitzgibbons farm and Brisby suddenly feels hope again in perhaps escaping with them, especially when Nicodemus reveals to her that he knew Brisby’s late husband from… NIMH. He then gives her a magical amulet which will be activated and protects the owner once he or she displays courage in dangerous situations. On top of it, and because of what Brisby’s late husband did for the rats back in the NIMH lab, they promise to help move her family out of the field but… Jenner, a power-hungry member of the rats who wants nothing better than Nicodemus out of the way and won’t shy away from foul play, may well throw a spanner in the works…

The visuals are terrific and clearly, this had been a labour of love for everyone involved. The score by Jerry Goldsmith emphasises the mood to perfection. THE SECRET OF NIMH is now available on Blu-ray in a Limited Edition O-card slipcase (2000 copies only) and Bonus Material includes new and archival audio commentaries / video essay / Behind-the-scenes featurette / stills gallery / original trailer and collector’s booklet.