In celebration of *Suzume (2023)*'s recent international release, I want to take you back to what I can confidently profess is Makoto Shinkai's magnum opus.
Greater than *Voices of A Distant Star*'s simplistic and timeless beauty. Greater than *The Garden of Words*'s controversial yet wildly important story. Greater than *Your Name*'s blockbusting magnitude... Greater than all of them, 2007's *5 Centimeters Per Second* stands above them all as one of Japan's proudest romance stories.
Story
Set in three different settings, in three different points in time, the film follows our main character Takaki as he navigates his troubled and love-distant world. The film takes an all too familiar romance concept, and shows you how it would actually play out, in brutal realism stacked on gorgeous animation: "What would happen if you loved, and lost, the love of your life?". The truth of it is, if you were placed in Takaki's shoes, you'd grieve and struggle for just as long as he does. If people can stay in love with a person their entire lives, people can also grieve for that love just as long. That's what 5 Centimeters Per Second proposes in its different stages of the film.
Music
The 1997 hit single "One More Time, One More Chance" is the film's central song. If you know Shinkai, you know he likes to create montages/music videos in his films with a love song as the centerpiece. Perhaps that pattern began with this movie. You cannot talk about the movie, in its deserved entirety, without mentioning this very montage, or rather, its ending. Shinkai really perfected the formula on the very first try. Using a song released 10 YEARS before the film's release, in the part of the story set 10 YEARS after the first "stage", is simply a genius concept to behold. But what's harder is choosing what to end the film with using the song. I won't say what happens, but if you've seen the movie, THAT scene in THAT time... It was the only possible road for the story to take, and deep down everyone knows it, but seeing its unfolding feels like the very catharsis that the audience is unknowingly waiting for. And boy does it deliver.
Animation
I could talk about the animation too, but one would think that any anime with a film budget has to have excellend animation. Almost all anime movies have this distinction in the bag, but what's unique about 5 Centimeters Per Second is its storyboarding, and its actual execution. It's the director's second movie with sci-fi-esque elements. Although not being a significant detail, the second stage (titled "Cosmonaut") delivers you the gorgeous blues and greens of the cosmos in the background of Japan's island south. The visual direction is probably the film's most apparent strong suit, because it doesn't pull its punches in showing you the mundane things that's part of the bigger picture. These seemingly unimportant shots serve to show you the current scene by the most minute detail, which deserves its own high praise. No stinkers in this regard, every scene and every cut has its purpose.
Conclusion
If you've seen most or all of Makoto Shinkai's movies, let me tell you something I've observed: every *film of his ends with a bittersweet ending*. And this movie IS its greatest example of that. Not just the ending, but the entire story from start to finish. It takes a very special movie to make you fall in love as Takaki does, to feel that third-person love for him as another character does, and to feel the decade-long depression that follows after losing that love. In every single aspect; visuals, music, story, production, everything, it honestly aces everything. I have no qualms giving this movie a 10/10. I make sure to watch it every single year to make this masterpiece fresh on my mind and soul. This movie deserves your attention and love.
