Director: Makoto Shinkai
Year: 2002
Genre: Romance/Sci-fi
One of Shinkai's early works and this film is a short film.
Mikaki and Noboru are two childhood friends who were separated and one girl was separated to fight a war.
For me, the story on its own could sell as a sci-fi film on its own; however, Shinkai is known for his romance films.
The story is a nice, simple concept, which is easy to follow. The narrative focuses purely on these two individuals and showcases each point of view of each individual.
While watching this film, it almost feels like a short version of A Place Promised in Our Early Days or 5 Centimeters per Second, except it's like a shorter version of that film. It's always nice to watch each filmmaker's way of creating a film. I've always been intrigued by Shinkai's films in his early days. His visuals have always been a constant in all his films except the only difference is that the technology was different to how it is today.
Considering this film was only about 25 minutes, he used the time efficiently, and you can understand the story. The foundation I would say is there, and the way he presents the characters in the film is good and easy to watch - especially being only 25 minutes. Even certain moments of the film make you feel emotionally connected with the characters and each of them despite being far away has a connection with each other. They just want to do anything to see each other again.
Visually a stunning film for its time, the cinematography is always a 10/10 and it's always a consistent theme of Shinkai.
Watching this film has shown me what Shinkai is like as a director, as we all know. Considering that his film was one of his first short films, I like the story of it. However, I wouldn't consider it as Your Name material or Garden of Words, but then again, everyone has to start from somewhere. I hope that one fine day he can create a film with sci-fi inside it.
Obviously, for people who only started watching Shinkai in recent years, this film is not like the blockbuster films we know today. But if you are a fan of his work, why not check his early stuff out?
Rating: 7.5/10
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