Within seconds of this beautiful film
starting I had to pause it and sigh. Trains. There are trains in this
film. And the style was instantly recognisable - Makoto Shinkai. Sigh
indeed.
This film is wonderfully animated, is exquisite to look at and, unlike 5 Centimeters Per Second, has a storyline. Of course, Children Who Chase Lost Voices had a storyline, but that didn't have trains, or snow, or teenagers waiting alone in train stations. This, like the aforementioned, had ALL THREE. I know, JACKPOT, right? Well, yeah, to be honest it was a great film once you managed to remove yourself from the insane amount of monologues that constituted the storytelling.
Two friends (with a remarkable knowledge of physics and engineering for middle/high school kids) are building a plane, they make friends with a girl and they all promise to go to this tower in a forbidden part of the country once it is finished, only the girl has some weird thing going on where if she isn't asleep a parallel universe will overwrite the current universe, radiating from the tower. So she vanishes and neither of these two lads does anything about it for 3 YEARS and they go their separate ways. Then it all comes out that friendship is important and promises made as kids are OMGTHEMOSTIMPORTANTTHINGEVERANDWILLSAVETHEDAY, so they go find the girl and then, even though it isn't mentioned if either of them has had any piloting experience at all, fly their weird, weird plane to the tower and the girl wakes up. There's a pretty intense love story going on between the kid who flies the plane and the girl, they meet in dreams and so on, so you know shit is real and they'll be together forever now he's saved her from a 3 year coma and has blown up her grandfather's legacy.
It's a nice film, there's a lot of narration, but the story goes somewhere and I enjoy tales of teenagers being embarrassed, and growing up, and planes, and inexplicable knowledge of making your plane radar proof, and trains, and snow and both these things at the same time. If you liked (or watched, or started) 5 Centimeters Per Second, this is essentially the best bits of that film in a film that is worth watching for the story, not just because the animation is stunning. The music is pretty too.
One thing bothered me about it: one of the kids work colleagues says she will make tea, but clearly puts on a pot of coffee. No. Just... No.
Should anyone watch this movie?: Yes, but be prepared for trains, snow and monologues. The only thing missing is bananas.
This film is wonderfully animated, is exquisite to look at and, unlike 5 Centimeters Per Second, has a storyline. Of course, Children Who Chase Lost Voices had a storyline, but that didn't have trains, or snow, or teenagers waiting alone in train stations. This, like the aforementioned, had ALL THREE. I know, JACKPOT, right? Well, yeah, to be honest it was a great film once you managed to remove yourself from the insane amount of monologues that constituted the storytelling.
Two friends (with a remarkable knowledge of physics and engineering for middle/high school kids) are building a plane, they make friends with a girl and they all promise to go to this tower in a forbidden part of the country once it is finished, only the girl has some weird thing going on where if she isn't asleep a parallel universe will overwrite the current universe, radiating from the tower. So she vanishes and neither of these two lads does anything about it for 3 YEARS and they go their separate ways. Then it all comes out that friendship is important and promises made as kids are OMGTHEMOSTIMPORTANTTHINGEVERANDWILLSAVETHEDAY, so they go find the girl and then, even though it isn't mentioned if either of them has had any piloting experience at all, fly their weird, weird plane to the tower and the girl wakes up. There's a pretty intense love story going on between the kid who flies the plane and the girl, they meet in dreams and so on, so you know shit is real and they'll be together forever now he's saved her from a 3 year coma and has blown up her grandfather's legacy.
It's a nice film, there's a lot of narration, but the story goes somewhere and I enjoy tales of teenagers being embarrassed, and growing up, and planes, and inexplicable knowledge of making your plane radar proof, and trains, and snow and both these things at the same time. If you liked (or watched, or started) 5 Centimeters Per Second, this is essentially the best bits of that film in a film that is worth watching for the story, not just because the animation is stunning. The music is pretty too.
One thing bothered me about it: one of the kids work colleagues says she will make tea, but clearly puts on a pot of coffee. No. Just... No.
Should anyone watch this movie?: Yes, but be prepared for trains, snow and monologues. The only thing missing is bananas.
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