Obviously as you might have guessed, I'm here to discuss, or simply talk about 5 Centimetres Per Second, one of Makoto Shinkai's films which I think is a very often misunderstood film, a film that I am helplessly in love with, for sure. It doesn't bluntly narrates every little things that it contains, it's more to something that you observe, it's a moving poetry.. and it does not tell you stories, it shows you. which are different cases and terms.
I found the story itself very simple, why it's often confusing is because it's a hard-to-accept concept, Letting go is not easy. A nicely written youtube comment sums it up pretty well for me, "the story is more about how much time and distance are between these two characters and how one realizes that the time they dwell on one another is just a waste of time and a waste of her life. while the other can't move on and has a hard time adjusting or noticing things around him because he's focusing too much on her. the last scene is great in showing how he stands there waiting for the train to pass and just wasting his time and realizing that its time to move on".
The train scene was great in even summing up the whole movie itself, the actions that each character's chosen reflects their personality. The fact that Tohno looked back and waited simply reflects how he's pinned head to toes to his past and his first love, resulting a handful of time wasted in his life. And instead, the girl chose to live her life fully, to move on and minding her own life, realizing that it's too much time to waste if she had chosen the opposite.
I didn't cry in this movie, it's one of those movies which leaves me an obscure yet exquisite devastation and heavy feeling of emptiness in you, kinda haunts you for some period of time. It's those kind of movies which have this powerful vibe, it's almost spiritual, I can absorb the spirtual scheme that it contains. The story itself isn't supposed to make me happy or sad, it's something that you observe and learn from.. and in the end it feels bittersweet, not a bad thing at all. Giving it a further thought.. try placing yourself in a pair of shoes that fell in love with a person you met since a very young age, years passes and time moves around you but your soul isn't following the movements of the time that surrounds you, instead it stays there. right there. your life goes on yet your mind and soul still does not mind anything but the girl you fell in love with at the age of thirteen. Come to think about it, it feels kinda surreal to think that now you're 34.. you wake up from your bed and turn off your alarm clock, looking down to the streets from the windows of your apartment.. you wonder what's she is doing, now you're 45 and a married man, and you're now gazing at your beautiful wife but your mind isn't there with you, instead it wonders where that girl is right now.
Come to think about it, that is just painfully scary, and the thing that I'm scared of the most is to ever be like that guy. The person you marry and the person you're going to spend the next 40 years with doesn't necessarily translate as the person you love, is simply pathetic and twisted. Life is about moving forward, not looking back.. nor is it pinned at the same ground with no movements.. it's about moving forward. Life is supposed to be lively and rewarding and not disappointing.
"The speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, 5 centimetres per second" is a metaphor of how in life people will gradually drift a part at slow steady matter of time. People and relationships between one another changes overtime but you should always fight to aim your goals.. Because time is always running, and time waits for no one, never bother to live in the past because it will only seize the meaning of your life and make your own life lost in no purpose. That, is how I at least grasp it.
People who loathe the ending are just twisted, I wouldn't even rate the movie near 3 stars if it isn't because of the nicely wrapped ending. I mean the entire point of the movie itself was that the ending was.. that way. which launches this movie to greatness. Otherwise Akari would've been right there after the train passed and would be reconnected with Tohno in some form and undoubtedly would only end up as another cheesy pointless love story. The ending was already beautiful, very honest because you know that is just how life is sometimes.
Okay, complaints session.. The transistions between the three chapters wasn't nice and it would've been more pleasant if the story telling take turns into Akari's point of view in some ways for once in a while.. because me, as a viewer was also interested in knowing how her life is and how she handles it from her point of view, even though I didn't ask too much of it because I think letting Tohno's point of view dominates the story is somehow working good, but you know.. just a little, a little, more Akari. Overall, aesthetically beautiful piece of art, great concept and devastatingly beautiful movie.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)