This gentle film has a lot going for it in its depiction of a young (but, at 27, no longer so young, and even more so when it was set - in the late 1980s - than today, and probably also more so in Japan than, say, Australia) woman who is joined on her two week holiday in the country by (memories of) her 10 year old self. I think what I liked most, though, is the way that the relationship between her childhood experiences, many of which are at least mildly coloured with regret at possibilities that never came to fruition, and her present day self is never drawn in an overly determined or explicit way. It's subtle, and all the more convincing for the way that subtlety allows the viewer to draw their own lines connecting memory and present.
Also nice is the simplicity with which both the recollections and the present day are presented, creating a nice melding with the - selectively used - sequences in which Taeko's inner imaginings manifest in the world.
(showing as part of the current Ghibli screenings around town)
Also nice is the simplicity with which both the recollections and the present day are presented, creating a nice melding with the - selectively used - sequences in which Taeko's inner imaginings manifest in the world.
(showing as part of the current Ghibli screenings around town)
