Okay, I absolutely loved this one. I was searching for slow-burn romance movies to watch and stumbled upon this one (on Reddit or MDL, I think). These days, I like to read reviews before going into a tv drama or movie – I must have become picky somehow, which is bad because going in blind often leads to a better watching experience. Anyway, so I read a comment that said they’ve just spent 2 hours reading entire paragraphs… and liked it. So off I go to search for the movie and spend the next few days trying to watch the movie whenever I’m free (somehow I cannot manage to watch movies in one sitting anymore) and I can only agree with that comment: you have to read almost the entirety of the movie but you end up loving it.
What is it about? An office worker joins an internet forum about movies under the user name “Haru”. He and another user named “Hoshi” start messaging each other privately via email and start becoming friends. Hoshi later reveals to him that she is actually a woman and does not live in Tokyo as she pretented. Still, Haru and Hoshi remain friends and continue to write each other emails about their love life, problems and dreams. They form a special bond that grows with every mail sent.
Why did I like it? There is so much to like about the movie. One thing is for sure the simplicity of how it was shot: we see so many different scenes or rather snippets depicting the everyday life of Haru and Hoshi. I felt the loneliness of Hoshi even when she was surrounded by others. At first, I thought I would dread reading the emails but I started looking forward to the mails more and more. The choice to include music for some and maintain absolute silence for others helped in creating the correct emotions. I definitely recommend checking out the complete soundtrack to the movie. There is a certain sadness to the movie and both characters, especially Hoshi, that the music captures wonderfully. My favourite soundtrack was “Boy Meets Girl” (composed by Soichi Noriki) – give it a listen to know what kind of aesthetic the movie goes for 🙂
Sad aesthetic. “Haru” was directed by Yoshimitsu Morita, however, I read online, that the movies “All about Lily Chou-Chou” (2001) and “Love Letter” (1995) by Shunji Iwai give off kind of the same loneliness vibes. I will put them both on my watch-list and tell you how I like them in another post!
But for now, thank you for reading 🙂 Have a nice day and maybe try out the app “slowly” if you want to experience the fun of writing letters again but don’t have anyone to write to.
Yours,
Tanniyan