Paulette's Chair (Poulette No
Isu) is a short film directed by Hiroyasu Ishida who is best known for
his fast-paced viral short Fumiko's
Confession. The short was produced at Studio Colorido, and it's almost
certain to brighten your day. Paulette's chair has no dialogue so it relies
heavily on the great score by Masashi Hamauzu, which evokes emotions and will
be vital to its analysis. The visuals are also very charming and many have
noted it has a very Ghibli-esque look. This is likely because the character
designer and animation director is Yojiro Arai, who served as animator for
Ghibli's From up on Poppy Hill and The Secret World of Arietty. Overall it
has a very uplifting story about a girl, Paulette, and her journey through to
her teenage years and her attempts to make friends in two key points in her
young life.
The
story is about a shy little girl, who lives in the country and seems
to play alone with her doll or read books. But then when other children
appear she wants to play with them as she watches them laugh and have fun
whilst she is hidden from view or far away. As she sobs on her chair, it comes
to life, throwing her off. After she gets back on the chair jumps about, it then
gallops at a break neck pace eventually throwing the girl off so that she lands
amongst the group of children. The girl then plays jump rope with her new
friends and happily waves them farewell as the sun begins to set. The girl
continues to play with her chair as it takes her racing with the horses in the
fields, birds in the sky and the fish in the stream. She uses it read her books
and to protect her from the rain. But she still has her friends from before. As
she grows she breaks the leg of the chair, but is able to fix it later that
night. Continuing on this as the seasons go on she tries to use it whilst she
does her homework on a small table, however as Paulette continues to grow the
small chair and table get too uncomfortable for her. So Paulette uses a bigger
chair, but still keeps the small one. Paulette and her family then move from
the country to the city and she takes her chair with her. Paulette thus also
goes to a new school. She tries to make friends but is rejected. Like before,
when she was too shy, Paulette goes home and sobs, this time seemingly praying.
The chair comes alive and as she finds herself sat on it, paulette is rushed
out of the house and down the street. It tosses her towards the new children
and as she lands in a tree the chair appears under her to catch her fall. The
girls Paulette had approached earlier giggle as she sits on her chair, all roughed
up, and presumably become her friends. The small chair breaks under her weight
just before the credits roll.
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A pictorial summary of Paulette's Chair
So on the surface Paulette's Chair is just a very fun
fantastic little tale about a girl and her magical chair. It seems to be much
in the spirit of My Neighbour Totoro
with a young girl experiencing life through an amalgamation of the real world
with a fantasy aspect. It could also be compared to another Ghibli film The Cat Returns where elements of the
real world are given an ounce of fantasy to them. Either way I believe there
can be a deeper reading of this short piece if we view the chair as a
manifestation of Paulette's self confidence. The story of Paulette's Chair is about our main character making friends as she
grows up and how her chair empowers her to do so. This reading mainly comes
from how different Paulette is when she doesn't have her chair and how she is
when she does. When she is riding her chair she is happy and ready to go and do
things. This is mainly shown when she is visually compared to horses in a field,
birds in the sky and fish in the stream as she sits on the galloping chair. The
chair gives her a sense of freedom; she is no longer confined as some caged
animal, she is free to go wherever she desires at whatever pace she wants. Horses,
which when galloping in an open field, are usually a symbol of freedom. So too
here these horses are not in some fenced paddock but are free to run (just as
the birds are free to fly and the fish are free to swim). This just symbolizes
the freedom Paulette has from her self-confidence. I must note this happens
after her first experiences with her friends, showing how she feels liberated
from her anxiety and fear by her chair. Her chair, or (with this reading) her
self confidence, gives her the freedom to do as she pleases, in this case make
friends. As a child this self confidence was very easy to find as it seems to
be for most children. Most young children generally don't care about how they
look to others or about being judged so they often have confidence in themselves. However
Paulette appears to perhaps be an introvert who is content to play alone with
her doll or read books by herself, however her tears say she does want friends.
However after she sits on her
galloping chair, all this erodes away and she is confident enough to make
friends. When she is on her chair she is happy and this means she is happy with herself When she
first sits on her chair we sense a change in the mood of the piano music as it
becomes less sad and meandering but happy and springing with violins coming
into the fore. We can see that she now has confidence
as when they play jump rope, although Paulette fails she still has a good time
with the others.
So Paulette’s chair is a
manifestation of her confidence that comes alive and helps her make friends,
but nothing lasts forever. After a while Paulette's chair breaks, she has
started to outgrow the image she has of herself and so her self confidence (her
chair) becomes more fragile. She is able to fix her chair though, in the dark
of night. However as the seasons go by children become teenagers, as does
Paulette. Teenagers are typically much more self conscious and embarrassed by
things. Therefore just as Paulette outgrows her small chair most kids (and
Paulette in this short film) outgrow their confidence in themselves as they
enter their teens. No single occassion causes this, no traumatic event, just
growth age and most probably puberty. Paulette moves to a new city and new
location and must find new friends. During this transition her chair (self
confidence) is never forgotten nor left behind as the animator(s) do just
enough with the chair's placement in each shot or the thickness of its outline
to keep the chair in focus of the frame. Despite her chair being physically
with her, we can see with her relocation to a new school that Paulette has
again become shy. Although she does ask others to be her friends (unlike before),
she does not persevere and, in a parallel to her earlier self, runs off and
cries by herself, this time in her room. Her chair magically comes alive again,
this time going under her and picking her up, rather than imploring her to hop
on it. The chair, with Paulette atop, then races out the door and down the
street. The two race towards Paulette's new classmates and as they do Paulette
remembers her feelings of freedom as she is reminded of galloping amongst the
horses, presumably as well as with the fish and bird. She has regained her self-confidence
and again has those same feelings of freedom. It is notable that her hair comes
free in this process. Previously she had made herself up nicely with her attire
and her pinned up hair, however when it comes free she feels happy, she is in
other words happy with herself and has regained her self-confidence. Her chair
allows Paulette to again have the freedom she had when she was young, notably
when she didn’t have her hair tied up as well. The chair then flings Paulette
head first towards her peers as it had done before. Even though this is a much
long distance to go, showing the difficulty it is to make friends or put
oneself as a teenager, Paulette's chair never lets her down. It shows that no
matter the gap one must overcome or the route one must traverse, as long as
they have self-confidence they can do anything, no matter how impossible it
might seem. So too just as Paulette's chair support her through the air it also
breaks her fall out of the tree she lands in. Her self confidence protects her
from any fall or injury and she ends up achieving her goal in the end by making
new friends.
If we read Paulette’s chair as a representation of her self confidence this short film shows how important and liberating having self confidence is in making friends. But there is one problem with this reading: there is no indication of how Paulette gets confidence in herself; her chair just comes alive. Although we can lose confidence in ourselves over time or as we age, especially as we hit puberty, so this needs no explanation. However, it is harder to explain how one gets comfortable in such a short time. How does Paulette, someone who hides from the other children, gain self-confidence in such a quick time? We might even wonder if the chair actually does have any magic powers of if it is just Paulette's imagination. So when she is lying on the upside down chair and it is holding her book, this could be done with an ordinary chair. Some may not have one of these but is could be suggested that the chair is Paulette’s imaginary friend. Imaginary friends theoretically are made by shy children that don’t have real friends, and in their interactions with them they gain the confidence to make friends. Furthermore imaginary friends don’t necessarily go away as one grows up; they could stay with Paulette into teenage years. Paulette’s Chair could just symbolise how imaginary friends often give kids confidence to do things they might normally not do, such as making friends as is the case with Paulette. Either way the suggested reading, of Paulette's chair representing her self-confidence (whether her chair is a manifestation of self-confidence or is an imaginary friend), has some very interesting and thought provoking ideas if one shot or two are highlighted and analysed solely. I did this a few times above noting how the journey to make friends or use ones self confidence is a much more difficult and treacherous one as a teenager than as a child, or how self-confidence gets outgrown as one comes into their teenage years. However there is some more that we can look at. I noted how when Paulette is rushed down her street in her new town and then has a feeling of freedom. It is notable at this time that her hair band gets lost and her hair blows freely in the wind as she joyfully smiles. We could speculate that this represents to have the freedom self-confidence gives us we need to be ourselves. When Paulette goes to school and even when she is moving she looks undeniably immaculate with her hair pinned up and her blue attire. During this time she looks notable subdued and as shy as the start of the short. It is almost like her hair clips, whilst holding her hair in place, are also restricting her personality. It is when she loses them thanks to the speed of her chair's movements that she regains her her feeling of freedom, as well as the smile that makes her seem much more friendly and human (as opposed to the shy posture of just looking down with a blank expression).
Therefore I would suggest that although Paullete’s Chair holds much of the youthful and fantastic charm and emotion of a Studio Ghibli classic, the short also offers a look at the importance of self confidence in a child’s life, the power of an imaginary friend in making new real friends or both of these. The main way this is shown is through the comparison that is made between her atop her animate chair and the horses freely galloping in fields. This chair, whether it be her self confidence or an imaginary friend, makes Paulette too feel free and allows her make new friends, both as a small child then as a teenager. Thus this short has a potentially interesting reading on top being a great short with impressive visuals and music.
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