Upon recommendation, I came to watching the movie, "5 centimeters per second." The odd thing about this film is, this is actually just a collection of short stories. It goes over the view point of one boy, Takaki Tonou while beginning when modern technology was not very common. (Meaning there was no real use of cell phones or email to a popular level yet.) This is split into 3 seperate episodes.
Episode one: Cherry Blossom
This is the beginning of the story in which Takaki meets the transfer student, Akari Shinohara, and eventually befriends her. They eventually grow very close and their relationship becomes incredibly strong but in the translations, it is not expressed as strongly in translated versions for some reason. They are presumed to have eventually become romantically involved, but it is not clear.
Unfortunately, the two are separated when Akari is forced to move due to her parents' jobs. They in turn write letters to each other, but eventually lose contact and drift apart. However, in the future Takaki moves as well. But, he will be even further away from Akari. Due to this, he decides to visit her one more time, in fear that he may never see her again. He writes a heart felt letter that he intended to give her, but on the train ride he lost it in a major snow storm. They eventually meet, but get stranded in an old shed together in which they both fall asleep. When they awake, he leaves, and Akari is left, holding a letter that she wanted to give to Takaki, just like he wanted to give to her.
Episode Two: Cosmonaut
Over the years, Takaki meets a girl named Kanae Sumida. She eventually falls in love with Takaki and goes out of her way every day so that she can have the chance to go home along side with him. Kanae loves him, but Takaki is ignorant to her emotions, so she appears as nothing but a good friend.
She notices that over time, Takaki had been writing emails. She eventually figures that he loved another girl, and decides to refrain from telling him her feelings. However, he was not addressing the emails to anyone. But, he wrote them every time he thought of Akari.
Episode Three: 5 Centimeters Per Second
The final segment of this tale deals with Takaki and Akari after they have aged and become adults. They both dual narrate and speak of their pasts and the memories they had with one another. Akari finds the old letter that she wanted to give Takaki, and it returns as to how they both wish to see the cherry blossoms together again one day.
One day while the two were walking, they both happened to pass one another. They have a double take and look back, only to find a train begin to separate them. When the train clears, Akari is gone.
This film is beautifully depicted and the art is absolutely gorgeous. Each scene is practically breathtaking and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I thought that it was beautiful in every form, and I was a little proud of the creators.
What shocked me though was the immense use of language. It was very sophisticated and was very odd. I personally respected it greatly and I found it spectacular, but it seemed far beyond the comprehension of the age group of him when Takaki was a boy.
The only issue with this is that it can appear boring. There are a lot of quiet scenes and it mostly consists of narration. The story is gorgeous and is well worth watching, but it is very dull to view and is easy to fall asleep to. Relaxing if anything.
All in all however, this film is well worth watching.
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