I only write the occasional review here. I dont do it nearly enough as I feel strongly about film as a medium and a tool to tell a story.
So i asked myself what if this was a book? Would it still work?
I asked myself that as I thought of Mei Kayama performance.
It is the best performance I have ever seen. It is hard to compare different performances. It is almost like comparing sports..
So one of the reasons why it was so good is that Mei Kayama's sweet voice is perfect for the sweet nature of the girl she portrays.
I have a soft spot for coming of age movies. (the best one until this one was Reflecting skin)
I really don't want to tell anything more. Well the camerawork and direction is excellent. They catch the right moments. I found the short scene were the camera was far away and Mei was having a talk with "the driver" was fantastic. Why I won't tell you.
You 'll have to see it for yourself.
Anyway to answer my original question? Like forest of love ,which has quite the opposite form of acting, the movie is the better medium to tell the story.
Sometimes a performance is so great that under the right direction no book can equal it.
A rating of ten can't be based on a single performance in a movie.
There is also story, camerawork, director, other cast members.
So mei's performance is perfect for me.
the whole movie revolves about Mei's coming of age.
and the entire cast, story, every detail revolves about that. There is not a second wasted (pun not intended)
The picture that Mei drew was perfect and I cant wait to see other work from her (this was her debut)
The director/writer is one to watch too. However she has set a really high standard for herself with this. And a movie half as good as this would still be dsmn close to perfect. So i hope she (Hikari) continues to make movies like that or will be able to tell other stories with no waste.
I think For Hikari the film is also about talking about people with disabilities. This is an issue in almost every culture not Japan alone though. Hikari managed to talk about it in such a way that we saw Yuma in the beginning as a wheelchair bound weak person very much because we (society,family/her mother) put her there.. And thus the director portrays Yuma like that.
However at the end we see a different Yuma . the transformation is subtle. Yuma is still Yuma. Nothing feels out of place.
So wlell dome director hats of...
While not as spectacular visual transformation like in a david lynch movie . where the transformation is so big there is even a different actor the transformation of yuma before or eyes is nothing short of impressive..
how it all changes... well you have to watch movie. l
