Love Letter — movie review

by Kris   ⋅   February 14, 2006   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

Being in a love flourished from passion and trust is the most exhilarating emotion, but if you realized that your betrothed was really in love with someone else –someone who could pass for your twin– could you forgive him? What if the opposite were true – you realized that you were in love with someone who, by your own fault, would only remain an unrequited ghost? Could you learn to forgive yourself? Locked away in an appropriately titled book, “In Remembrance of Things Lost,” in a teeny school library, possibly lies the answer.

I first watched Love Letter rather sketchily without subtitles while going through my Takashi Kashiwabara phase. Although he only appears for a total of five minutes in flashbacks, he certainly makes an impression with the help of a billowy curtain backdrop and longing glances from shy girls. Thus established as the object of affection, oddly enough in this movie he has to earn it, although Takashi often portrays the brooding outcast.

Fighting initial disgust and unrelenting jeers from peers, Itsuki Fujii finds herself starting off Junior High with a boy (Kashiwabara) who shares her name. Cruel classmates figure it would be a hoot to forcibly pair up the two by repeatedly assigning shared tasks, drawing hearts around their matching names on the chalkboard, cooing and oohing and ahhing –you know, the usual mature kid stuff. This of course only drives them further apart, although Itsuki already finds her “mate’s” laziness disturbing. When they are linked on library duty, Itsuki shirks his responsibilities and invents a new way to pass the time. He sulks in the corner reading obscure novels, signing the empty check-out sheets, so proud that his is the first and only name. In one of their only pseudo conversations, he tries to explain the beauty of his discovery which she brushes off as stunning arrogance. It is only until after his death that she realizes that he was up to so much more than what she had assumed.

Wait, so he died? Itsuki died young in a mountain climbing accident, leaving his fiancée Noriko Watanabe (Miho Nakayama) in such perpetual denial that two years after his death, she secretly sends letters to his old address in a quaint town called Otaru, evidentally where he spent his Junior High days.. aah, you see where this is going? According to Itsuki’s mother, their old house was demolished when a highway was built, but amazingly Noriko’s letters are answered with brief polite and prompt responses. In her mind, it is her beloved corresponding from beyond and it is exactly what she needs to believe in. Her current beau, Akiba, is dismayed yet attempts everything in his power to both appease her while helping her to move on. The only thing that seems to push her in that direction is accepting the hard truth that it wasn’t love at first sight that attracted Itsuki to her. She discovers that she is the spitting image of a woman who shares the same name as the lost love of her life.

It doesn’t end there; Love Letter is all about uncovering secrets. Noriko learns that Akiba hesitated to be the first to court her, Akiba’s assistant is secretly in love with him. Itsuki learns why her grandfather hunches over so severely, the tidal command of family loyalty, who was in love with her and who her first love really was. Like the veil protecting the head of the precious Hinamatsuri (Spring/Girl’s Day Festival Display) and the sick-mask (Japanese wear when they have a cold, similar to a doctor’s mask) covering Itsuki’s face in the beginning of the film, barriers are sometimes set in place to shield us from impending distress. In response to her digging, perhaps Noriko lets curiosity kill the cat. Would that possibly grant her the closure that she needs? Or would her meddling force someone else to regret the choices they’ve made for love?

Technically, although there are more quick cuts, continuous pans, and dizzying camera rattling than most Japanese dramas, Love Letter boasts its own poetic moments: snow creating a clean slate, the omnipresent mountain range as a constant reminder of Itsuki’s fate. There are also many truly comedic moments: a cute burp concerning simultaneous equations arises when male Itsuki apparently played hookie from Math class, and Sanae Oikawa’s (Ranran Suzuki) quizzical antics. So even though the theme is heartache and heartbreak, you won’t be left alone in your pile of used Kleenexes. If you’re in love, you’ll feel it like a warm blanket of sweetness pockmarked with empathy. This movie challenges Butler’s “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all”. And you’ll feel that too.

About the Author:

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson hopes your Valentine makes you feel worshipped and adored or otherwise fills you up with candy. Check out dreamlogic’s “Love List of Romantic Movies to Induce Snuggles and Huggles“.

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