OBACHAN'S SCRIBBLES

Today I went to Kochi city (where I used to live) and saw this movie, The Harimaya Bridge. Yes, the one that I was an extra in a year ago. Was I in the movie? No, I couldn't find myself today. But if I rent a DVD and play it slow over and over, there might be a surprise, so I still have a hope.

To me it was a lovely movie like a handmade gift made with lots of love. Nothing gorgeous, but warm, touching and personal. Frankly, this film appealed more to my right brain rather than left. The serene beauty of Japanese countryside so sensitively captured. Lush emotional, lush green, and the bright red color of the Harimaya bridge... Many movies and TV dramas/documentaries have been filmed in Kochi, but none showed the beauty of Kochi as stunningly as this film did, I think. I loved the camera work, especially the use of the mirror and glass. And it had to be Ben Guillory and Saki Takaoka to fit in this serene tone of the scenes.

More than anything -- the paintings used in this film! They HAD TO be those paintings -- nothing else -- to perfectly match this story. I'm not just talking about the paintings by Mickey but including those painted by the little girl. They were just right. To me they looked far more convincing and persuasive than any of the lines in the story.

I have to admit that I felt something in this movie made it look like an "educational movie." Maybe the storytelling? Editing? Dialogue? It's not that the Japanese lines were strange or grammatically wrong. And they were wonderfully translated into local dialect, not like the poor work by some Japanese TV dramas. But ... I don't know how to explain this... I felt those lines were meant to explain the message or the theme of this film (and possibly written in English first?) rather than to be real and be touching by being real. Am I making any sense? So I had this slight strange feeling that those Japanese people I saw in the film were "Japanese as seen through non-Japanese eyes," which made my empathy as a Japanese fade a little, to be perfectly honest.

That said, I was and still am charmed with the warmth and sensitivity of this movie. And I can proudly say that this is a handmade gift from our beautiful countryside, Kochi, Japan to all the people who find themselves being between two different worlds and making their own choices step by step.
:)