?A faint clap of thunder
Clouded skies,
Perhaps rain comes,
If so,will you stay here with me?? ? Makoto Shinkai, The Garden of Words
Some movies are just beautiful art. And Garden of Words is one of the most breath-taking anime art I?ve ever watched. A very simple yet intriguing story narrated by Akizuki Takao, a 15 year old high school student who aspires to become a shoemaker talks about how he learned to walk in his life without even realising it. Between rain and garden, this slightly controversial story takes place. And I couldn?t help but watch this movie over and over, and each time I found out interesting things that I?ve shared below.
1. The low angle door opening shot.
If you have watched Mr. Makoto Shinkai?s works, you will find this particular scene in most of his movies. The opening of the door and the character walking out. It is worth noticing how character is always walking out rather than walking in. I personally love this shot, it shows monotony of the character and how ordinary the character is.
Garden of Words
2. The feet frames.
The idea of this frames coincides with Takao who aspires to become a shoemaker, also how the characters are learning to walk in their lives. As shoe, feet and shoemaker are correlated, all the three things are used as symbols throughout the movie to show how characters are gradually learning to walk with the help of each other.
Shoes protects us from the things lying in our paths, and this deliberate attempt of making Takao a ?shoemaker in training? serves an important role, as he provides the protection Ms.Yukino needed when she had lost all the hopes, while he is learning to walk too. He has also expressed that, ? I?m going to make a pair of shoe that will make her want to get up and walk, and find her way?.
Movie has series of feet frames, like when Takao enters the garden, the moccasins that he had made for himself, Ms. Yukino?s feet when she is sitting in the garden or when she runs out of the door at the end of the movie, etc.
Garden of Words
3. The Filler delights
Each snippets that is used to maintain the flow of the movie is delight for eyes. The close up shots, the perspective shots, the rain and the garden. The snippets emphasised the nature, the city life and the ordinary world around the characters, especially during the rainy season. Each snippets has unusual things like close up of making breakfast, an insect floating on water, when Takao is sketching, the rain, etc.
Garden of Words
4. The Tanka scene.
We have two such scenes where tanka written by Mr. Makoto Shinkai is recited. Precisely, the first tanka comes with the frame where Ms.Yukino and lightning thunder is laid out in the same frame.
Tanka scene-1, Garden of Words
The second tanka is when there is no rain, which is obvious as per the answer for the first tanka :
?A faint clap of thunder
Even if rain comes not
I will stay here,
Together with you?
I love how little little details are well thought and executed perfectly in this anime movie.
Tanka scene-2, Garden of Words
5. The Hovering branch.
Though movie has subtitles showing the name of month, but I loved how the change in season is shown with this one particular branch that is hovering over the lake in the garden.
Left: Monsoon, Middle: Summer, Right: Winter; Garden of Words
6. The Egg scene
Yes, this is one peculiar snippet. One may wonder why it is put there. It is worth noticing how Ms.Yukino breaks the egg and how it creates the mess, where as when Takao breaks the egg, it is perfect. This is slightly deluding and contradictory. It shows how perfect Takao is but the ending of the movie says otherwise.
Garden of Words
7. The Distance
If you?ve watched all the movies written by Mr. Makoto Shinkai, then congrats. Because I believe you understand what kind of distance I?m talking about. Its certainly not a physics term. In this movie, the distance is between the characters and their worlds. To be more precise, Takao is a high-school student and his world is far away from that of Ms.Yukino as she is a teacher and her world is of adults. The rain acted as bridge and it connected the characters, and their worlds were left outside when they were in the garden.
Garden of Words
8. The confession
Towards the end of the movie, both the characters confess about how they feel. All the unsaid things that were delusional so far, are conveyed and cleared. And as they do, the rain is shifted to bright sun gleaming in the sky.
Garden of Words
These frames shows the ending of rain and the garden is left behind, representing the characters has no misunderstanding left between them and they leave their miserable lives in the garden (of words) and this scene marks the beginning of them moving ahead in their lives. After all, we can only move on when we accept the things instead of running away from them.
Garden of Words
9. The ending scene
If you have watched the movie past the credits, this is the scene I?m talking about. The realisation of Takao, where he reads the letter from Ms.Yukino and finally completes the pair of shoes for her. He admits that Ms.Yukino was not the only one who was learning to walk, he was learning too. This scene marks that Takao has become a shoemaker and he is now closer to the world of adults, closer to the world of Ms. Yukino.
The conclusion of the movie, whether they?ll get back together in future or not, is left to the viewers to interpret. which makes more sense as the story is slightly controversial. I personally loved how the movie ends.
10. Garden of Words
Though the title of movie is ?Garden of Words?, it has very few dialogues. I believe, a lot of thought is given for each dialogue. At times, the dialogues feels poetic. Especially the parts where Takao narrates. The placement of dialogues seems deliberate, and played as supporting role, as the visuals did most of the heavy lifting for the movie.
The garden is depicted as an escape. It is worth noticing how the sound-effects shifts to purely nature even though the garden resides in the heart of the city.
Garden of Words
Conclusion
The movie holds a lot of things that will take so much time to write about. Unfortunately, I couldn?t write all the things in one post. But if you are interested in such intriguing movies, I?m sure you will understand the pain of omitting out the points.
Honestly for me, this is the best work of Mr. Makoto Shinkai. Though I love his other movies too. But this is a pure work of art. And if you have not watched this movie, I strongly recommend it.
Liked the story? You can always clap for it.. Go ahead and tap on the claps.
