Oh, it's unquestionably beautiful and moving! I'm still thinking of it a lot two days later, and I've gotten my husband to watch it too. Spotted so many more things in the rewatch too! And I've got a fic started because apparently, I can't help myself. LOL But I still think it doesn't deserve an Oscar nod, despite how beautifully crafted it was. Like, the themes are the power of romantic connection and the ephemeral nature of dream and memory. That doesn't really compare to identity and family and respect for others, IMO.
You know, I realized yesterday that where they finally spot each other IRL is such a beautiful metaphor, but you wouldn't get it unless you lived in Tokyo and understood the train system somewhat?
Taki consistently uses a line that runs through the center of Tokyo, connecting east to west, and it's called the Chuo/Sobu because they are essentially the same thing; the Chuo line is an express version of the Sobu. The Sobu line stops at every station and takes more than twice as long to complete the journey from Nakano to Ryogoku (or backwards). They share the same platforms and run on parallel tracks, so you can move easily between slow and fast versions of the line(s). So they share the same origin and destination, but crucially, never ever meet, because they run in parallel, two versions of the same thing, with one skipping faster through time (because it skips stretches of stations) than the other. And they are often in sync for brief stretches of time.
Isn't that a beautiful metaphor for their journey?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2017-02-22 11:28 pm (UTC)You know, I realized yesterday that where they finally spot each other IRL is such a beautiful metaphor, but you wouldn't get it unless you lived in Tokyo and understood the train system somewhat?
Taki consistently uses a line that runs through the center of Tokyo, connecting east to west, and it's called the Chuo/Sobu because they are essentially the same thing; the Chuo line is an express version of the Sobu. The Sobu line stops at every station and takes more than twice as long to complete the journey from Nakano to Ryogoku (or backwards). They share the same platforms and run on parallel tracks, so you can move easily between slow and fast versions of the line(s). So they share the same origin and destination, but crucially, never ever meet, because they run in parallel, two versions of the same thing, with one skipping faster through time (because it skips stretches of stations) than the other. And they are often in sync for brief stretches of time.
Isn't that a beautiful metaphor for their journey?