Today, director Yamada Naoko's newest movie
The Colors Within (
きみの色 Kimi no Iro) opened in Japan. I have been very excited about this movie ever since it was
announced as it brings back the trio from
Liz and the Blue Bird: Yamada Naoko as the director, with a script written by Yoshida Reiko and music by Ushio Kensuke. Nothing was going to stop me from catching the very first screening at the local cinema. Nothing. Not even if there is a typhoon (Typhoon 202410, named Shanshan) sitting over Japan right now, pouring down rain like a waterfall. I was going to brave the rain with
Vivi, but in the end, decided that life was still worth living and took public transport instead.
This movie is very much Yamada Naoko, with a band, a ton of female characters, her colour and art style (
Liz and the Blue Bird,
A Silent Voice), the closeup shots of people's legs/feet/hands to show their emotions (the body language part). The story is about three students in their final year at high school: Totsuko, who goes to an all-girls mission school in Nagasaki and lives in the dormitory; Kimi, who went to the same mission school as Totsuko but quit school abruptly; and Rui, who is from a different school and lives on one of Nagasaki's islands (probably one of the Goto Islands).
Official website for Garden of Remembrance (the short film before this movie, and probably the inspiration for this movie)
Like in her previous works, director Yamada Naoko made full use of music in this movie, even feedback noise. I like how she tries to explore the struggles of teenagers standing at a milestone in life. At the same time, some of the events may not be realistic (I will touch on those in the later part of this post). The movie is great for enjoying how she blends the colours, art style, animation, and music together; the story can be better but this is her first movie based on an original story, so it is probably not realistic to compare this movie with other movies like
The Garden of Words or
Your Name. I also like how she uses colours to represent people. But once Kimi's and Rui's colours were revealed, it was kind of obvious what Totsuko's colour would be (without having it being revealed towards the end of the movie).
Each of the main character has her or his own struggles, being in their final year of high school and having to decide on what to do from there. At 101 minutes, I felt the movie was not able to fully bring closure to each of their stories; in the end, I think only Rui had some closure as we see him embarking on his next stage of life at the end of the movie. I don't think we ever found out why Kimi quit school too, or what Kimi and Totsuko are going to do next.
By the way, there is a final scene after the credits. The credits also revealed that Fujita Haruka (the director of
Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll) worked as a unit director for this movie. Comic Wave Films, which produces director Shinkai Makoto's films, was also one of the companies that helped in the production of this movie.
Whatever the case, this movie is a must watch. I am definitely going to find time to watch it one more time, and will update this post if I notice anything new. I really hope more people will go and watch this movie. When I went today, it was the first screening of the movie on its opening day; there were only about 20 people watching with me. I think the weather played a huge part; the typhoon sitting over Kyushu plus torrential rains all over Japan probably stopped many people from going to the theatres today, and probably this coming weekend too. I just hope everyone will go and watch it when they can, so that director Yamada Naoko's first feature-length film after leaving Kyoani will be remembered as a success, instead of leaving the impression that she can only succeed due to Kyoani.
The next part of this post may contain spoilers.
First,
Totsuko has this thing about seeing the colours of people (or rather,
seeing people as colours). Kimi's colour is blue, Rui's colour is green,
and I think everyone can guess that Totsuko's colour is red without
being told so. Making them the three primary colours also kind of
implies that together, they can come up with all kinds of other colours,
bringing about infinite possibilities.
I also feel that some parts of the story are somewhat unrealistic. For example, given that Rui is the only "heir" to the clinic, you would think his mother would be a bit more protective. But she was really cool with him just calling one day and saying, he is staying over at the unused church with some friends and already brought over some futons from home. Meanwhile, Totsuko's mother did not scold her at all when the school called her to inform her that Totsuko broke a couple of rules at school and the dormitory by letting Kimi stay in her dormitory room. Maybe director Yamada Naoko had very forgiving and accepting parents growing up.
The three of them must be really talented too. Kimi just started learning to play the guitar, and Totsuko more or less started learning to play the piano/keyboard when she accidently invited Rui to form a band with her and Kimi. But in the span of about eight months, they managed to write their own songs and perform all three pieces at the school festival. This was on top of Rui having to study to enter medical school, and I think Totsuko had to spend a large portion of her time at school too since she did not quit school like Kimi.
But I guess it is also very deliberate on her part to make this a movie
that is positive and reaffirming. No one gets put down because this
movie is really about the everyday struggles of teenagers, and she wants
to let them know that it is okay to have doubts, it is okay to be
different, it is okay to be afraid to tell your parents (or guardians or
teachers) about something.
I felt that the
story itself could be expanded a bit more. For example, a photo seems
to imply that Rui has an older brother, but his mother (the only doctor
on the island they live on) said that Rui is the only person left to
take over her clinic. It implies that something has happened and this
brother is not around to do so anymore. But the movie never really
revealed what actually happened. Kimi's reason for quitting school was
never revealed too. She also mentioned that she and her brother left
home to go stay with their grandmother, but we didn't really get more
details about why they left home.
At the end of the movie, Rui was seen sailing off, probably implying
that he was moving out of the island to go attend medical school. But
how about Kimi and Totsuko? Are they going off to university? Or? This
band kind of just disbanded (pun totally intended), and I cannot help
but feel that it would have been better if the ending was more
inspiring.
Again, I think it was deliberate. Director Yamada Naoko is giving us a peep into the lives of the characters, without letting us look inside their heads. We are shown their everyday lives, and it is up to us to figure out what is going on.
Hopefully, director Yamada Naoko's next work will have an even tighter story so that everyone can enjoy her art and direction style fully. As it is now, some viewers may not enjoy the movie as it can be a bit vague or require too much work on the viewers' part. People are used to being told the story, yet in this movie, we are shown the story. It is up to us to piece together the story from what we see. Also, I think this work was deliberately "loose" because she is trying to reconcile things within herself (see the related post below). In a way, it is the ultimate slice-of-life anime; there is nothing extraordinary, and it shows how much of a genius director Yamada Naoko is for being able to turn someone's everyday life into a movie that you just can't take your eyes off, and yet you don't know why.
Related posts:
Unrelated notes:
One of the people who inspired director Yamada Naoko is director/writer/artist
Jan Švankmajer.
