This is a simple story about love in it's best context: Two shy people who fall in love, with a mystical occurrence added. It does not lecture; it demonstrates through kindness, gentleness and selflessness by all the characters. Before I review it, let me add that humans have generally the same set of emotions, in varying degrees, dictated by life experience, culture and genetic makeup. If you are young and inexperienced, or if you are cold hearted, this movie may mean nothing. If you are happily married, or have been married a long time, it may mean little. If you are a grandmotherly matron, or just old, you may dab your eyes a bit and move on. But if you are a person like me, who has known women like the one in the movie, and who has lost them through mistake or circumstance, it will strike a chord that will course through your soul and strike all the other chords of loss and grief that have lain dormant, until your body is ringing in a cacophony of resonating notes that pierce your heart and tell you once more your chance will never come again. Neither I nor the movie are religious, but somehow I kept thinking of First Corinthians:13 all through the film, because that is the best definition of true love that I know.
Review of Ima, ai ni yukimasu
