Day 7: Garden of Words

In the film, there is a strong use of visuals, especially with the rain. This gives the environment almost a magical, other worldly feel that one can not express as well in live action. There is immense detail given to the environment and to the symbolic elements of the film. Shoes play an important part. Yukino, we would see every shoe that she wore through his eyes. Compared to American animation, the details in the background make the background an extremely important part of the film verses American where often this is to help the characters stand out. There is a much slower pace, living in the moment parts in this film that really slows down the narrative in comparison to American films. Compared to Ghibli, a lot of the moments played a lot on the emotions of the characters much like Ghibli does. Depending on the emotions of the characters, the rain would change. Often the weather would almost turn fantastical, especially with the final storm scene, which reminded me of some of the Ghibli films. With Ghibli films, I feel that the characters fit in the worlds a bit better, matching the style, compared to this one for often the characters would lose lines and have blocks of light coloring them that they looked like they were form a different world compared to the painterly, impressionistic style. The characters connection is the main point of the film, where Ghibli is not often framed that way, communication is a key part of the plot. Overall I was impressed by the presentation, I could see his passion for the work and I enjoyed learning some of the history behind the film and director. He is very knowledgeable and I really liked seeing how Japanese animation production worked and how they would save money and time to be able to follow a tight schedule.