Flashbacks are mainly featured in this film as it's about nostalgia of lost love and memories. Not only we see cassette tapes back in style, there's the sony walkman, the trusty scooter, the loud bang of photo-taking machines and the chunky radio to bring us back to where the very basic of young and blossoming first love feels like.
Shikoku is the town where the young couple grew up in and where they spend their adventures of grave digging, exploring islands, and fantasizing about where the center of the world is. As the story unfolds, girl got sick and boy still continued loving her but the girl ended up dying alone due to some (co)incidence.
The story is fragmented in the sense that it tries to link up the present and past and at the end of the long film, it's finally connected but the link was too weak to even prove the strength of the scriptwriting. Maybe the novel that it was adapted from would be a better read as I feel that the film tried very hard to evoke the sadness out but considering myself as an easy cry audience, I didn't feel that sad.
The overall setting was there but still something was missing to complete the whole picture. Maybe the acting, or the script or it took too long to develop the love between the 2 youngsters until the final link doesn't seem that important after all and the rest just crumbles .that's sad by itself.
But still, I like the music, the location shots, the male lead actor (older one), colour treatment, and the concept of talking to each other thru cassette tapes so it's still recommended for Jap lovers and even better if your first love is as romantic and sad as them ..
Shikoku is the town where the young couple grew up in and where they spend their adventures of grave digging, exploring islands, and fantasizing about where the center of the world is. As the story unfolds, girl got sick and boy still continued loving her but the girl ended up dying alone due to some (co)incidence.
The story is fragmented in the sense that it tries to link up the present and past and at the end of the long film, it's finally connected but the link was too weak to even prove the strength of the scriptwriting. Maybe the novel that it was adapted from would be a better read as I feel that the film tried very hard to evoke the sadness out but considering myself as an easy cry audience, I didn't feel that sad.
The overall setting was there but still something was missing to complete the whole picture. Maybe the acting, or the script or it took too long to develop the love between the 2 youngsters until the final link doesn't seem that important after all and the rest just crumbles .that's sad by itself.
But still, I like the music, the location shots, the male lead actor (older one), colour treatment, and the concept of talking to each other thru cassette tapes so it's still recommended for Jap lovers and even better if your first love is as romantic and sad as them ..