Hunting the Elusive

The Byousoku 5cm DVD was released yesterday/today in Japan, and whilst I was waiting for DHL to get my special DVD box to me, I thought to myself, "Should I pretend to be one of those deaf mutes...or should I give in to my impatience, soften the crushing grip of ignorance upon my heart, and download the raw?" So I downloaded the raw, knowing full well that I had already done my part in supporting the author and therefore had nothing to be guilty over. Since I only just watched the whole thing twice, this review is relatively "shallow" and I haven't been able to work out all my feelings about this film yet. Warning: Spoiler for entire film after jump.

Byousoku 5cm (subtitle "a chain of short stories about their distance") is comprised of 3 stories or chapters "Oukashou", "Cosmonaut" and "Byousoku 5 Centimeters", revolving around the protaganist Takaki Tohno, and his "first love" Akari Shinohara. Makoto Shinkai, one of the masters of modern sci-fi anime with "Hoshi no Koe" and "Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho", is said to be "breaking new ground" by abandoning his highly successful science fiction ventures for a story grounded in the reality of life.

But is this really such a strange venture for this auteur? Is he taking a leap from his genre of strength? For me, the answer is "no". Recall the earlier work he was renowned for "Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko", a succinct black and white story of "She and her Cat". Told through the perspective of a lazy pet cat, the very ordinary life and the very ordinary heartbreak of a very ordinary lady was depicted.

"Hoshi no Koe" was also a story "about their distance". A physical and spatial distance which even modern communications technology fails to bridge. "Kumo no Mukou" had its most emotional part (at least for me) in the monologue that Hiroki had during his aimless days in Tokyo.

Every time I get to my room and shut the door, I feel a stabbing pain in my heart as if all the bones in my body are breaking through my skin. And I wonder when it was that I became burdened with something like this. I was living alone, and the nights felt long. When I couldn't find anything to occupy my time, I would walk to the nearby station and pretend I was waiting for someone. When I got tired of that, I walked back to my room as slowly as possible. I had friends at high school, but I found that other than when I was wearing my uniform, I really didn't want to be around them. Come to think of it, in a city of more than thirty million people, there wasn't a single person I wanted to see or talk to.

The distance between the Sayuri and Hiroki is bridged by their dreams and after the stagnant period apart, they reunite on the Velaciela in the skies of Hokkaido.

The science fiction trimmings might have been discarded in Byousoku 5cm, but this work remains well within the continuity spectrum of the themes that Makoto Shinkai deals with. Considering the aims of this latest film, science fiction might have very well distracted us from the central theme.

The central theme is distance, speed and time. To think that those formulaeic units learnt in high school physics lessons could be utilised in such a manner! "5cm per second" is the title of the last chapter and also that of the entire body of work. It refers to Akari's pseudo-trivia mentioned in "Oukashou", that cherry blossoms fall at the speed of 5 cm per second. This phrase remains deeply entrenched within Takaki.

Akari soon transfers to a school far away, and Takaki too, received news that he would also be transferring, making the distance between them even further. He therefore grasps his chance to visit Akari, making a long train journey to see her. His anxiety is compounded, and in a way, symbolised by the snow storm which throws his plans into disarray with interminable delays. It blows Akari's letter to him out of his reach, and for all his worrying and glancing at his watch, there was nothing he could do.

All this ends happily (at least, on a superficial level), for he reaches his destination hours later than he had planned, but Akari was still waiting. Their distance had closed and in that kiss under the sparse sakura tree, he understood and grasped a piece of that elusive heaven where "eternity, heart, and soul" dwelled. But in that very same moment, he realised that however strong their feelings were, they would not be able to stay together forever. Life, the world, and the future would slowly but surely increase the distance between them. "Oukashou" ends with their separation, and their wishing each other well and promises to write.

"Cosmonaut" then starts. Keeping in mind that "Byousoku 5cm" is based firmly on reality, this chapter is set in Tanegashima, 1999. Takaki had transferred to this island for high school. This story is told from the perspective of Kanae, a girl in his class, has been having a crush on him since he started, working hard to be in the same class as he was, and engineering her schedule to spend more time with him. "He probably has a girlfriend in Tokyo", says all her friends, and this is backed up by the fact that he is sometimes seen typing messages on his phone. A rather mild form of dramatic irony for the audience, because we know who he is communicating with.

Through Kanae's point of view, we see Takaki as she sees him: kind, quiet, and good at everything, with his future planned out ahead of him -- going to college in Tokyo. Meanwhile, she remained undecided about her future, playing catch up to her sister, be it in life or in surfing. However, one night under the starry skies, Takaki tells her that he too had many indecisions about his life, eliminating (for her at least) the distance that she had always perceived between them.

Again, the "speed" trope comes up, when Takaki is jolted by Kanae's explanation that the transport for the ELISH launch rocket was travelling at 5km/hour. In a short scene, the audience's smugness is deleted, when it was revealed that for all of Takaki's typing, he didn't actually send those messages. Where Kanae had put him upon a pedestal, Takaki had lost touch with Akari and put her in his dreams, creating an entity so perfect that, for all of Kanae's resolution, she could not possibly compete against. Kanae, in close physical proximity to Takaki, was nevertheless unable to cross the unimaginable abyss which Takaki had created around himself.

2008, Tokyo is the setting for the final chapter. Takaki is still single, Akari has moved on in life and is married, and the distance between them is now impossible to bridge. But they still remember each other, and for Takaki, she still remains the one and only person he thinks about, as evinced by his (for lack of better word) stalker, who writes that "Even if we were to exchange 1000 emails, our hearts would probably not move even one centimeter closer". The music video which takes up a major part of this chapter and which ends the entire anthology plays the part of uniting everything: not just the duologue between Takaki and Akari, but also the previous two stories, providing snapshots which fill in the missing pieces. In compact form, and to moving lyrics, it summarises the mundane storm of life which steadily distances people, and dismantles our dreams bit by bit. We end with Takaki supposedly moving on...but is that really possible for him?

Valid criticisms about this film of course could include the fact that "life" is not an external force which tears people apart. The characters were the ones who put a distance between themselves, even though life circumstances had caused the physical distance. They were the ones who stopped writing letters and who rejected (or accepted) advances by other parties, who stopped pursuing their loves. Was their doomed love a self-fulfilling prophecy?

But no one could claim or expect the characters to be perfect. They acted in a realistic fashion, and I think any single person would be able to identify with Takaki's position: the heady joys of first love, the anxiety which followed, the worship, and finally the distancing and the resignation, though I'm not sure if many people are as "pure" as Takaki in his commitment to Akari.

"Byousoku 5cm" did not end with a "happily ever after ending". This fact could be seen as a milestone for Makoto Shinkai's film-making career, the attainment of a maturity of plot -- to be able to be faithfully and painfully true to life. The words which kept coming to mind when watching this film was "such is life". Makoto Shinkai has long taken the mundane scenes of life and portrayed them with beauty. With "Byousoku 5cm", he shows us the weaknesses and pain behind our mundane lives.

C'est la vie.