The maker of the beautiful Tokyo.Sora has outdone himself with what is one of the most touching love stories ever made. The film starts with two teenagers who fall in love but are unable to express themselves romantically. Every (awkward) silence seems filled with meaning and things left unspoken, accompanied by a guitar play which is constantly repeated but never fails to beguile us. Years later they meet again. A simple, minimalist concept but extremely effective. Ishikawa creates meaning not by plot complexities, but through the perfect simplicity of atmosphere, perfectly precise framing, perfectly subtle coloring, perfectly natural acting purified of all the remnants of theatricality which the medium never succeeded to fully shake off (not even through the work of Ozu), and by letting the open sky envelop the main characters as a rejuvenating force, that can grant us warmth and happiness on the one hand, yet can overwhelm and numb us on the other hand, if we fail to open ourselves up to it entirely. In the latter part, the sky is covered up by the drabness of city-life. Life is but a mere shadow of the past now and possibilities are reduced to the roads that lead only to the familiar. The more we yearn for the past, the more it slips out of our grasp. But even then, there is hope. 10/10
