Kotonoha no niwa

A great portrayal of the melancholy of the summer rains and the overall "in the rain" atmosphere handled brilliantly and without exaggeration. Of course, what's the point when the carefully built atmosphere of this feel-good film becomes an annoying festival of sentimental whining during the final quarter of an hour. (2014.04.27)

Ever since his first short, Other Worlds, Makoto Shinkai has repeatedly depicted basically the same story, only each time in a different genre framework and with increasingly flawless animation. In this respect, his most recent work is truly the pinnacle of his career so far. Particularly where his animation is concerned, Shinkai’s self-developed technique has already reached the level of almost photographic hyperrealism. The incredibly sophisticated effects of changing light and weather give the impression of shots of a real environment altered with (optical or post-production) filters. In this captivating form, The Garden of Words offers a sensitive romantic story about the ambiguous relationship between a withdrawn student and a young woman whom he meets during a rainy day in the park. The narrative is conveyed in Shinkai’s classic style through suppressed emotions, succinct impressions of ordinary moments and details of everyday life. Unlike in his previous films, however, Shinkai completely dispenses with fantasy motifs and presents a pure, simple romance. The film exhibits surprisingly many points of contact with the unjustly lesser-known Studio Ghibli movie Whisper of the Heart – from the focus on handwork and the painstaking depiction of the local atmosphere of the real environment to the constituent peripeteias of the relationship, where the two protagonists find their way to each other and subsequently have to survive a long separation, which further deepens their feelings. Unfortunately, The Garden of Words differs from Miyazaki’s brilliant screenplay in that we see in it a formulaically weak heroine who has to be pushed into action at key moments by the hero, and instead of self-confident characters, we actually see just more emotionally unstable characters tormented by their feelings and their surroundings. (2014.08.23)