Screened (or rather, streamed) as part of this year’s Galway Film Fleadh, this is Makoto Shinkai’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Your Name and unfortunately a slighter film overall, with a whimsy that takes the edge off its emotional rawness. Nevertheless, it remains true to the director’s common themes of love embattled by circumstances, and the marginalisation of spiritual culture (or cultural spirituality) in contemporary Japanese society, with a fantastical tale of a ‘sunshine girl’ whose prayers can banish the rain, but only put it off to another time – a fairly blunt metaphor for the need to face up to one’s responsibilities in life. Needless to say it looks impeccable, in the attention to those little details that seems beyond the vision, if not the capabilities, of mainstream western animation. ★★★
Cross-posted from Letterboxd