This movie was written and directed by Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai, whom many call the new Miyazaki. Whether the title is deserved I cannot say, but I will admit he did change my view of animation.
But first, let's talk about the story. The plot is calm, quiet, and unassuming: A 15-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a shoemaker, and a 27-year-old literature teacher meet when they take refuge from life troubles in a park......only on rainy days. I didn't really connect with either character, nor did I find any moving theme or message, but that is not what makes this movie worth writing about.
Instead, what intrigued me was the animation. You may be asking, "Sandra, why did you, who famously prefers live-action, take the time to watch this obscure and random movie?" It is because I saw the following gifs while perusing the internet one day....
They are a good representation of the style used throughout the movie. It's crisp, it's fluid, it's immaculately detailed. The water animation - which plays an enormous role as a good 80% of the movie is set in the rain - is just to die for, and the camera movement feels purposeful. It's absolutely beautiful.
And this made me realize something very, very important about how I view animation. I found myself loving every single shot of the city, the trees, the rain, the trains, the sketches....But the moment a human enters the shot, I feel jarred. The photorealism of backgrounds and objects compared with the artificial 'flatness' of human characters just doesn't hold well in my mind.
Let's look at an example.
Take a look at the background - Every drop of rain, every leaf, ever contour of the cloud is beautifully defined. A good fifteen to twenty shades of green are seen in the tree on the left alone.
Now look at the woman - she's, for lack of a better word, too smooth. Her jacket is a block of solid color with little shading, as is her face. That is not a face which can show a wide range of emotions, because it's so simple; two black lines are never going to be as expressive as real lips.
And this leads me to my second point:smoothness of movement.
Ultimately this movies led me to realize my qualm with a lot of animation: I find the smoothness of synthetic characters completely jarring when juxtaposed with significantly more realistic objects and backgrounds. So my question is, if we have the ability to make backgrounds and objects so detailed....why are the characters always so 2-D and 'blocky' (composed of only a few shades of color, with little facial detail?)
Wouldn't it be amazing if we took the photorealism of this shot....
...and put it on his face?
I realize it sounds like I'm advocating for making animated movies more 'live-actiony", but that's not exactly my point. I'm just asking directors to stick with a single animation style per film. If you want to give me smooth and detailed backgrounds please, please do so - but do the same with your characters.
Either way, I just wanted to post this PSA, that Sandra has found an animated movie/animation form that she really, really appreciates. There's hope for me yet.
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