People are very generous about this movie, female gaze and all. But, I actually think this leaps from restraint, to straight sanitization. A whole third of this is thematically incomplete with how it noticeably skates around anything even mildly lesbian. I think to some degree you undercut your intimate character study by ignoring a massive spectrum of things that involve "love". Pizza wit no cheese.
OK, I must clarify, the expression work in this movie is phenomenal. Visually stunning too, watercolors and expression work is top notch. Music sections stand out in the audio mixing: choosing which instruments to let stand out. And. There is heavy queer subtext, close to bursting. Unfortunately, it's also got Japan's trademark queer invisibility looped in.
The surface 'friendship' narrative doesn't survive under the theme of "love as possession". They've constructed a world in which neither gay people, OR romantic relationships, exist. It's like a modern piece of art where we're expected to fill the negative space so big brother doesn't bring down the hammer, resulting in expression without passion, and shell-shocked prose.
Thankfully the thematic core of the movie sustains itself, even though it's missing half it's vital organs. It's a debacle concerning possession-based-emotional-miscommunication, where these girls need to navigate around a common false intuition about love. It rounds the contours of this type of affection, and brings to light the self-centering impulse that places each of the girls as the stagnant caretaker, and the other as ephemeral, fleeting, powerful, unstable. The way the movie paths through and incorporates a fleet of feelings and subtle interactions through this lens is quite impressive, and effective.
Ultimately it uses it's subtlety well early on, then spends a while meandering in a bunch of interactions that lack momentum, or the soft, nuanced touch of it's early visual storytelling, and pace. It displays queer affect gorgeously, but it's restraint in telling that through a more explicit lesbian lens makes it feel disembodied, culturally marred, evasive.
People are very generous about this movie, female gaze and all. But, I actually think this leaps from restraint, to straight sanitization. A whole third of this is thematically incomplete with how it noticeably skates around anything even mildly lesbian. I think to some degree you undercut your intimate character study by ignoring a massive spectrum of things that involve "love". Pizza wit no cheese.
OK, I must clarify, the expression work in this movie is phenomenal. Visually stunning too, watercolors and expression work is top notch. Music sections stand out in the audio mixing: choosing which instruments to let stand out. And. There is heavy queer subtext, close to bursting. Unfortunately, it's also got Japan's trademark queer invisibility looped in.
The surface 'friendship' narrative doesn't survive under the theme of "love as possession". They've constructed a world in which neither gay people, OR romantic relationships, exist. It's like a modern piece of art where we're expected to fill the negative space so big brother doesn't bring down the hammer, resulting in expression without passion, and shell-shocked prose.
Thankfully the thematic core of the movie sustains itself, even though it's missing half it's vital organs. It's a debacle concerning possession-based-emotional-miscommunication, where these girls need to navigate around a common false intuition about love. It rounds the contours of this type of affection, and brings to light the self-centering impulse that places each of the girls as the stagnant caretaker, and the other as ephemeral, fleeting, powerful, unstable. The way the movie paths through and incorporates a fleet of feelings and subtle interactions through this lens is quite impressive, and effective.
Ultimately it uses it's subtlety well early on, then spends a while meandering in a bunch of interactions that lack momentum, or the soft, nuanced touch of it's early visual storytelling, and pace. It displays queer affect gorgeously, but it's restraint in telling that through a more explicit lesbian lens makes it feel disembodied, culturally marred, evasive.
