This film could be considered more of a work of art than an actual film. At least it is treated as such. Every scene is carefully crafted and molded to perfection. Seriously, this might be one of the finest looking anime that I've had the pleasure of seeing. I literally saw myself pause the screen just to stare at the amount of vivid detail there was in every sequence of the movie, never missing a step.
This is to be expected though, it is masterfully crafted by Makoto Shinkai after all. The guy behind movies like 5 Centimeters Per Second & A Promised in Our Early Days. As I said before, the animation was great, but this movie seemed to enhance those elements and raise them to another level. However, there was always a problem I had with his previous iterations: the character designs. I never believed the characters belonged in the immensely detailed backgrounds they were put in and this always altered my attention as I watched his movies. Fortunately, the problem was finally abolished and the characters fit right into every scene.
As I mention the characters, I have to say this is one of the weaker points of this film. We are introduced to a young school boy and a mysterious older woman. They happen to meet each other in a garden/park they frequent with and in time, slowly start to interact with each other. Many of the scenes where the characters are interacting, music overshadows their voices and it is left to interpretation. The sound isn't particularly noteworthy but the piano arrangements are definitely placed in the right situations and really adds to the atmosphere. Much of this movie is symbolic and it really gives it more of an artistic vibe than your usual film. Due to the length of this film(45 min), the characters are never fully developed. Instead, we are left with conversations that are actually important and not just there to fill time. No other characters are really given any type of development but it really can't be helped when a film is set up this way. Even so, I believe this adds an enhanced focus to our main characters and what goes on in their minds.
Now that we have everything else out the way, let's get to the meat of the film: the story. The story center around what society would consider a "forbidden" relationship. In this case, a 15 year old boy and a 27 year old woman. Throughout the movie, the characters are fighting if whether they can continue this relationship so it is kept a secret from everyone else around them. All in all, I believe the point of this film was to showcase that our two main protagonists had something missing in their lives but no matter what they did, they couldn't figure it out. It wasn't until they met each other, that the emptiness inside them went away. I believe that is one thing to take away from this film. They didn't care what society thought about them and decided that their love was more important. Whether you believe this is right or wrong is another matter but I believe this is ultimately the message behind this wonderful film.
Random Notes;;
-I tried to minimize spoilers as much as possible, hopefully I succeeded.
-The ending is definitely a jam I'll definitely come back to.
