From its opening image of a lone seagull soaring through a gentle city snowfall to its hauntingly beautiful cloud-drenched finale, Korean director Seong-kang Lee's gorgeously animated feature film MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL MARI fashions a mournful meditation on the end of childhood. Living in an isolated fishing village, pre-teen Nam-woo is a lonely boy dealing with his father's death, his mother's new boyfriend, and the impending departure of his best friend, Jun-ho, who is moving to Seoul. When Nam-woo finds a magical marble in a toy shop, he is given a chance to escape his troubles via an abandoned lighthouse that serves as a gateway to an ethereal fantasy world populated by lush vegetation, billowy clouds, and a white-haired girl named Mari who floats through the air and wordlessly offers hope and comfort. An elegiac evocation of the often difficult transition to adulthood, Lee's poetic fairy tale is sure to vivify the world of Korean anime with its truly visionary style and subject matter.