I’ve Discovered a Goldmine

“What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.” –Mandy Slade

Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 British-American musical drama film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. It is set in Britain during the rock days of the early 1970s; it tells the story of a fictional pop star, Brian Slade. The film stars Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard, Micko Westmoreland, and Alastair Cumming among other actors. It’s the story of the life, death and resurrection of a glam-rock idol named Brian Slade, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Set in 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart is writing an article about the withdrawal from public life of 1970s glam rock star Brian Slade and is interviewing those who had a part in the entertainer’s career. As each person recalls their thoughts, it becomes the introduction of the vignette for that segment in Slade’s personal and professional life. Part of the story involves Stuart’s family’s reaction to his sexuality, and how the gay and bisexual glam rock stars and music scene gave him the strength to come out. Rock shows, fashion, and rock journalism all play a role in showing the youth culture of 1970s Britain, as well as the gay culture of the time.

Todd Haynes’ recount of the glam era is visually rich but a tad too dramatically fragmented. The style is devilishly flamboyant and gleefully indulgent. Todd Haynes’s distinct style of showy costumes and sexuality is on full display in this film. The musical numbers integrate beautifully in the film. The film seemed like a narrative of a sexually free bygone era. It can be said that Velvet Goldmine is also about the emotions and desires attached to the changing times. Haynes’ portrayal of glam rock was as an art form that allowed means of expression for a band of outsiders.

The film can be interpreted as inspired by the life and biography of David Bowie. It is also similar to the way that Citizen Kane narrates a fictional biography.

Just Some Wankers

The movie is based on a popular novel by Irvine Welsh. The movie was directed by Danny Bolye, starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, and Robert Carlyle. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their journey through life. It’s about characters who are tossing away their lives for the sheer reckless hell of it. Broke, unemployed, beyond hope or even apathy, they fill the void any way they can.

The movie conveyed a very raw and genuine portrayal of drug addiction in Edinburgh. Well worth viewing as a realistic and entertaining reminder of the horrors of substance abuse. However, the film does not preach; it allows the audience to wallow in the pain and daringly, in the pleasure of the character’s substance abuse. It is a film that dares to challenge the audience. Trainspotting is not a noble story or even a cautionary story. It is a painfully real and genuine story. It perfectly captured the way drug addiction gave structure and direction to purposeless lives and invokes a breathtaking fix.

Mark Renton’s circle of friends don’t form typical characters that normally elicit sympathy from the audience. Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is a psychotic who finds purpose in violence, while Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) peddles drugs, and Spud (Ewan Bremner) is just unfortunately a loser. However, it’s hard not be fascinated by this assorted collection of colorful character, especially with a cast that burn on the screen, courtesy of an amazing and captivating script.

Music and visuals played an important role in the skillful execution of the film. The combination of visuals and music with the setting of the Edinburgh crime scene can be compared to popular 90s indie cinema films such as Pulp Fiction. Similar to Scorsese and Tarantino, Boyle uses pop songs as rhapsodic mood enhancers, though his own hypnotic style.

The title of the film comes from a scene in the book where the main character, Mark Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, meets an old drunk man in an inactive train station, who turns out to be his friend’s estranged father. The old man asks Renton and Begbie, who happened to be the man’s son, if they were “trainspotting”.

“Straight away he clocked us for what we were. Small-time wasters with an accidental big deal.” –Mark Renton

lost along the lost highway

From the beginning alone, Lost Highway (1997) already seemed like a cult film. Its ominous scoring, eerie color grading, and strange characters who would belt out strange lines as well set the tone for me. It was such an unusual film. To be honest, I was lost in the narrative. I had to slowly piece together Fred Madison and Pete Dayton’s stories in order to understand the plot and motive of Director David Lynch.

The opening scene immediately posed questions for the audience. Who is Dick Laurent? Why did he die? Who is leaving Fred this mysterious message? Why is Fred receiving it, yet does not know anything about it? When a video tape of Fred and Renee arrives at their doorstep, I initially think that the film will revolve around a search for whoever sent that tape, but honestly, when have Sir Ty’s films ever been that simple?

What I found extremely disturbing was the mystery man who Fred met at a party. The way he smiled, color of his skin, his voice, and his piercing eyes all made me uncomfortable. His whole being made me feel uneasy which, I guess, means he was a perfect fit to play a mystery man.

When Fred suddenly kills his wife, he is detained in a jail cell. He then starts to have hallucinations. As if the film was not already confusing enough, he suddenly transforms into Pete Dayton. This transformation allows audience members to focus on yet another set of characters, trying to piece everything together again. Although the second half of Lost Highway was composed of a different set of personalities, mystery man still remained the same and was creepier than ever.

Through Pete’s narrative, we see how different he is from Fred. Dayton is car mechanic with a big social circle, a loving family, and a sexually driven girlfriend. Fred, on the other hand, is a middle age musician who seems alone and is married to a woman he cannot sexually connect with anymore.

In the end, I was left confused. How exactly did Fred shift to Pete? After a while, I finally understood that Pete was Fred’s escape from allegedly killing his wife. Fred did not want to accept his actions so he disconnected himself from, well, himself. In other words, he developed dissociative identity disorder. With this sickness, one shifts from different personalities, thus leaving a sole identity fragmented. A major cause of this is trauma – in Fred’s case, the murder of his wife.

I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them. Not necessarily how they happened.
Fred Madison, Lost Highway (1997)

Besides Fred and Pete, I really want to give tribute to Patricia Arquette who played both Reece and Alice. With just a hairstyle change, she was able to manifest two extremely different characters all in one movie. She gave such a great performance as both girls. The film also revolves around her. If Reece was not murdered, Fred would have never transformed into Pete. Because Fred is so fixated on her, he includes even her in Pete’s world as Alice. He portrays her as an adulterer and dishonest – traits he hated in Reece. An important scene is when Alice whispers “You’ll never have me” allowing Pete to transform back into Fred.

Personally, I would not rewatch Lost Highway, but I do see why critics view it as a classic – all of David Lynch’s films are. He expresses a sort of strange and twisted narrative that is attractive to viewers. In the end, I recommend people watch at least one David Lynch film once in their lives.

A Not-So-Lovely Love Letter to Los Angeles

When Repo Man (1984) ended, I was quite shocked by how it wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be. This is, of course, in comparison to the previous movies we’ve watched in class. Oddly enough, I’ve learned to love the weirdness of other movies, which made this pretty standard and unmemorable.

Something that was interesting though was how well it captured the era and Los Angeles. It kind of reminded me of La La Land (2016), the so-called “love letter to Los Angeles”, but it was the kind of world and time Sebastian would want to be in—one not too consumed by modernization yet. In some way, I see Los Angeles in Repo Man to also be like a character in itself. The town’s personality was really seen in this movie, so that’s a nod to their cinematographer and production design team. It showed the rough end of Los Angeles, a slight contrast to the usual depiction of the city as a goldmine of opportunity and glamor.

It might be a little too oversimplistic, but I see this to be kind of like Sebastian’s own la la land because it was a simpler time with its yuppies, convertible cars, drag races down Los Angeles’ Sixth Street Viaduct, talks by a burning barrel, and having one’s teenage years being the true golden years. These characters might be a little more rock-and-roll than jazzy, but I can see how Sebastian would be made fun of less for being the old soul that he was in La La Land’s setting. It was also more violent than what Sebastian probably would have wanted, but hey, these punks were just trying to live their best lives (unlike Sebastian, the sell-out that joined John Legend’s jazz pop band). It’s also not to justify their crimes, but it did seem pretty common at the time since there wasn’t a lot of reaction from bystanders or even the ones robbed.

I liked the scene where these two men driving the alien car stopped over at a convenience store and ended up having their car stolen by some other punks. They knew they couldn’t do anything about it so they just drank their shakes and watched the car drift off. It was also weird how these robbers had a thing for convenience stores. Pretty much all the robberies they showed in this movie were held in convenience stores or small groceries. I guess it was to also emphasize the products in the scene, which were all labeled according to what they were. I appreciated this choice because if it were just random brands, it would have just blended in with the background. I see this as one of the many marks of the era teased in this film. It could be seen as an outcome of consumerism and rise of mass production during the 1980s, or it could have just been some added peculiarity to an already-strange film.

This generic aspect of goods in the movie was also mirrored by Otto’s two-dimensional brainwashed parents. It felt like Otto’s whole world outside his repo man duties was stagnant and boring. Plus, having this juxtaposed with the thrill and excitement he felt on the job emphasized how he loved being a repo man and how it served as his escape.

If I didn’t watch movies like Schizopolis (1996), Trainspotting (1996), and Futureless Things (2014), I would have been super freaked out by the alien car because of how weird of a plot device it was, but because I was desensitized at this point, I found the twist slightly underwhelming. It was funny, however, how the weirdest character of them all was the car’s “chosen one”. It was like a Captain America-Mjölnir moment but definitely more epic (yes, the Repo Man version).

Though I may not have found this movie to be too great, my experience watching it was still not that bad of an experience. Its humor was on point, the dialogue was good, and the production design was admirable. Repo Man had a lot of ups and downs in terms of quality. It was just unfortunate how the downs outweighed the good.

let’s meet at twilight

Growing up, I guess the only anime I ever watched were Pokemon and Detective Conan. After that, anime never really appealed to me until Kimi No Na Wa (2016). Its astounding visuals, storyline, and characters gave me a glimpse of what I was truly missing. Director Makoto Shinkai has already made multiple films, but according to sources Kimi No Na Wa is his greatest work by far. As every minute of the film went by, I started to understand why it was such a highly acclaimed anime film.

The film revolves around two teenagers, city boy Taki Tachibana and country girl Mitsuha Miyamizu, who swap bodies and eventually become star crossed lovers. In a span of almost two hours, the film’s genre shifts from humor to romance to heartbreak – with a touch of fantastical elements along the way. Personally, my favorite humorous moment was when Taki, in Mitsuha’s body, was crying while touching her breasts because he had not been able to swap bodies with her for a long time. However, my favorite scene overall was when Taki and Mitsuha finally met face to face in their own bodies. This was such a dramatic scene to watch – especially with amazing visuals and colors representing twilight.

I loved how Kimi No Na Wa was structured as well. The opening scene followed a life of Taki and Mitsuha after their twilight meeting. They were far apart and had no recollection of anything, yet they both felt something or someone was missing from their lives. Of course, first time viewers did not know this yet at the time.

The storyline as well was amazing. I believe swapping bodies is already a great plot in itself, but Director Makoto Shinkai was able to integrate multiple cultural elements into his story which made everything more interesting. Through this film, viewers get a glimpse of Japanese culture, although a bit tailored to match the story. Without the concepts of kuchikamizake and “the red string of fate”, I believe the film would not have been as highly acclaimed. Also, the director highlighted how there is beauty in disaster. He used the concept of the comet destroying Itomori along with a great color palette and visuals to showcase this important theme.

Character development is also a very important element for Kimi No Na Wa. Viewers see how two different teenagers fall in love with each other through their body swaps – how they both adapt and find themselves in each other. However, what I loved was that, although their love was featured, the director focused more on their journey towards finding each other and acknowledging the other’s existence.

From the introduction of characters, when the comet strikes, to the final meeting of Taki and Mitsuha, my eyes were glued to the screen. The way every scene escalated kept me awake and interested in the film. Halfway through the film, I really thought the turning point would be their initial meeting, but I was caught off guard when Mitsuha was actually experiencing the swap three years prior to Taki.

Kimi No Na Wa was an enjoyable film to watch – from visuals to storyline I was kept on my feet. I understand why people were crying after we watched. They were moved by how two people who have never actually met could reunite through a special bond. However, this film is not enough for me to delve into the world of anime. Don’t get me wrong – I think anime is beautiful and I understand why people do watch it, but I guess the genre isn’t just for me.

Black Mirror writers betraying me for 52 minutes straight

Black Mirror (2011) stands as one of my absolute favorite shows of all time. Shut Up and Dance definitely falls under my top 5 episodes from the whole series. This episode has one of the best plot twists I’ve ever seen in both television and cinema (i mean—it’s at par with the ones from Jane the Virgin). Throughout the whole story, I was rooting for Kenny, the lead, because it seemed like he was such a nice guy that was just unluckily caught doing something he was ashamed of. Seeing as he was that young and he still deeply cared about his image, it was understandable that he went above and beyond just to have that video of him not leak.

Alex Lawther’s performance in this episode was so good and convincing that I was moved to tears each time he had to do something extremely humiliating for whoever was watching him. I was on edge for the whole 50 minutes because I really felt bad for the kid, and with this unknown messenger bombarding him with commands and questions, it could’ve gone anywhere. He was also just a kid incapable of defending himself so he really could have died at any point in the story. It was also an episode of Black Mirror, so of course there had to be some type of twist, I just didn’t know what.

Nearing the middle of the episode, I did wonder why Kenny cared that much about the video leaking to the point that he risked his life time and time again just to move on to whatever the next phase was. Though, I eventually just let him be because of his age and the vulnerability that comes with it. In contrast to the crimes or secrets the other characters had, it seemed like Kenny’s was the lightest. Yet, he was still forced to do the most extreme of things like robbing a bank alone and even killing a man. “How bad could it be?” was a question that kept entering my mind throughout this whole thing.

The writing in Black Mirror episodes is always so well done. They do things in ways I wouldn’t have even thought of. Especially with my attempt at writing screenplays for my other COM class, I have this newfound appreciation for storytelling and its reflection in writing. They time points of conflict, vulnerability, and of course, change (in the form of plot twists) with absolute perfection. It’s what has kept me watching, even if it did mean I had to put aside some homework.

Rewatching the episode, I didn’t notice how the pedophile bomb was dropped earlier than when I caught it the first time. It was in a conversation with one of the men obeying orders from the same messenger. I guess it was meant to be a vague clue as to what Kenny could have possibly done that got him in this whole mess—that or I was really just too blinded by my pity for Kenny and how I saw him as a protagonist with a good heart in an unfortunate situation. Apart from this, the more direct reveal came a few moments after Kenny fought with the same guy. Troll faces were sent around and we find out that the messenger still leaked all the videos of the people involved despite them doing what they were told. The phone call with his mom sent immediate shivers down my spine.

“What did you do, Kenny?! They’re saying it’s kids! That you’ve been looking at kids!”

This was when I knew that Black Mirror was not a show to be messed with. I was so mad yet impressed by how they were able to make me root for a pedophile for a full 50 minutes. It was so well-written and well-executed that I had to let the whole credits roll for me to take the time to reflect on what I just watched. They really fooled me. I would most definitely not classify this as an easy watch, but for some reason, I still keep coming back to it because it’s that great of a masterpiece. It’s a definite must-watch for everyone.

Not your average telenovela

Whenever people ask for TV show recommendations, my first reply is always Jane the Virgin (2014). I first tried watching this show a year after the first season was released because I kept seeing good reviews from critics. I was intrigued by the 100% it got on Rotten Tomatoes, so one summer afternoon, I finally decided to watch it on Netflix.

Jane the Virgin has gracefully perfected the art of plot twists. The writers are somehow always able to pull off the addition of new antagonists or just added drama episode after episode. I don’t think I ever sat through a whole episode without squealing or screaming at least once. This show has the best writing I’ve ever seen. It is most definitely hard to pull off in the soap opera or telenovela format because plot twists get old real fast, but they’re still able to manage.

Jane is a third-generation Venezuelan-American that lives with her Venezuelan immigrant grandmother, Alba, and her mother that already grew up in the States, Xiomara. The whole show was always grounded in family and seeing as it was in their culture to be family-oriented, it wasn’t too hard to relate with the Philippine context. Because of our history with Spain, our culture was never too different from that of Latin America, which was why this show was able to resonate with me on a much deeper level. Whenever Jane was caught in some sort of conflict about herself, her career, or her lovelife, she always turned to family. Her grandmother and mother always dealt with Jane’s problems with tough love. They never shied away from giving their honest, sometimes cold, opinion and/or telling Jane off (sometimes, they would ignore each other for long periods of time), but because love for family is unconditional, these problems would always be resolved and their love for each other would never be lost. It’s also important to mention how Jane grew up in a household that was very Catholic. Her grandmother is like every other Filipino mom heavily devoted to the religion; the type to turn to prayer with the slightest glimpse of conflict. This quality of her childhood and current household never strayed too far away from the plot and was always there to ground Jane’s morals and decisions. Because Jane and Xiomara were born into a time and country where religion was given relatively less importance, they were a bit more progressive with their religious beliefs as compared to Alba, so it was nice to see that contrast in the show because I, too, see it in my own household.

Jane the Virgin is a self-aware telenovela, so it pokes fun at the format and satirizes a few of its elements like the romanticizing of super normal moments and slowing down footage of Jane’s male leads whenever they enter the room. Even with the telenovela format I’ve grown to hate, this show was able to not overdo it and mixed in enough elements to make it some sort of “organized mess”. There was a lot going on, but it wasn’t the kind where you’d lose the plot and not know what was going on anymore (unlike some of the movies we’ve watched in class, to be honest). While watching Jane the Virgin, I was frustrated with the fact that our local telenovelas could easily share this kind of good writing and not have every plot twist feel like it was forced (i.e. Ang Probinsyano). Of course, the production value and consistency of episode releases are different, but in an ideal world, I do hope the Philippine TV industry is able to reform itself into something that values quality over quantity.

I will always be in awe of every single branch of Jane the Virgin’s production. From its premise conception down to the superb acting of Gina Rodriguez, Justin Baldoni, and Yael Grobglas among others, Jane the Virgin really changed the game for TV shows for me. Right now, it takes the place of #1 on my list of favorite shows. I imagine it’s hard—probably even impossible—for any other show to top this, but I’ll be sure to keep my eyes peeled for it.

Fakery’s layers

Coming from Lost Highway (1997), I was more engaged in the story of F for Fake (1973) because it dealt with how the concepts of expertise, fakery, and credibility could be constructed and questioned. Like Lost Highway, this movie dealt with multiple perspectives. Though narrated through the voice of one, there were multiple stories intertwined to form one story. The different subjects of the documentary were able to explain their side of the situation and how they pulled off their trickery. Another similarity I saw with Lost Highway would be how the concepts were both very existential in nature. It forced the audience to question the truth — what is real and what isn’t?

Because of the nature of this class and how badly the movies we’ve watched messed with our minds about reality and film, I had a lot of trust issues coming into this movie. I did not know if the people in the videos were actors or if they were the actual people the narrator said they were. I link my apprehensions about this movie to how the narrator was a real and visible character. He came off as too much of a fictional character rather than an objective narrator. It also mixed fictional scenes with clips from actual interviews, so it was hard to draw the line between what was nonfiction and fiction. Despite all of this, the reveal towards the end of the movie still got me by surprise. It was the perfect way to end a documentary about trickery and fakery; it left me rethinking about art and art as both an industry and a market. I did appreciate the art market for how it worked despite its tendency to be extremely pretentious, but with this documentary’s exploration of art forgery, my respect lessened.

Another aspect of the film that I particularly loved was its format. It reminded me of the documentaries that the Neistat brothers used to put together in the early 2000s following a similar style of cinematography and quality. It seemed like amateur (handheld and borderline home-video style) filmmaking which gave the movie a more personal touch. The freeze frames were the absolute best, and I think it was a mark of the times as well, so it was interesting to see the progression in documentary cinematography over time.

In the class discussion, it was raised how Orson Welles was hired to edit all this footage to fit a documentary format, but over time, the story morphed into something other than the documentary it was supposed to be — it also became a demonstration of the exact concept it was talking about. This then reminded me of Beastmode, A Social Experiment (2018) and how documentaries have this tendency to evolve over time together with its subjects and creators. Unlike movies with a relatively set start, middle, and end, documentaries are more prone to change because it tackles real-life stories that can develop any other way during its production. For the case of Beastmode, the political climate changed over time, and the writers adapted to that change and found a way to intertwine the storyline of the documentary’s original stars Baron Geisler and Kiko Matos with the Duterte administration. Upon doing more research about Welles’ documentary, I found out that Irving took on a bigger role in the documentary than what was initially intended. It was only during production when people found out that Clifford Irving’s biography of Howard Hughes was forged. This simply added even more layers to the narrative. Naturally, Welles didn’t want to stop there, so he decided to add another layer of his own by adding in a fake story at the latter part of the movie.

This whole experience of watching F for Fake simply made me fall in love with the documentary format again. I lost touch with it recently due to lack of time, but I’m glad to have rediscovered that love I thought I already lost. Documentaries are something I’ve always wanted to make, and seeing this movie has done nothing but push me to pursue this kind of career in the future. Though not completely nonfictional, there’s still something very special about the rawness of documentaries and its subjects. A movie that stimulates the minds of audiences while watching it and creators while making it will always be a great one, and this was nothing short of that.

endless loops

In my eyes, The Endless (2018) does not seem like a low budget film. Cinematography, acting, directing, and visual effects were on par with what high budget films should look like – all because of all around superstars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.

After watching The Endless (2018) and hearing about its prequel Resolution (2012), I have gained so much respect for directors Benson and Moorhead. They were able to properly encapsulate science fiction and suspense with whatever budget they had. From sharing main roles, writing the script, directing each scene, and paying attention to camerawork and effects, I bet it must have been taxing for them as filmmakers, but all worth it in the end.

At first, to be honest, I found this film a bit dragging. Although each scene projected suspense, I wanted there to be more turning points and physical action – which was only shown almost at the last 30 minutes of the film. However, build up and visual cues, along with the ominous scoring, really led the audience to believe that Camp Arcadia was not your regular summer getaway.

What I admired about this film is what the entity could potentially represent. In a literal sense, it is the mysterious figure that controls all time domes. However, this entity can also be seen as audience members. Just like this figure, we also watch the stories of the characters in this film unfold. Their stories were made for our amusement only and we are taking advantage of it as viewers. Just like the figure and his real time photographs, we have an omniscient point of view of everything in Camp Arcadia.

However, in the end, I was left slightly disappointed. There was definitely a clear ending – main characters Justin and Aaron were able to escape the “time dome” before the mysterious entity could kill them. Despite this, I had more questions than answers. How did this mysterious entity actually look like? What was the purpose of the old man who brewed beer all day? How did members of Camp Arcadia vanish into thin air? I feel like all these and more could be answered in another film following Resolution (2012) and The Endless (2018).

The movie in itself was great for a low budget film, but I recommend that audience members watch Resolution (2012) first. In that film, viewers are introduced to a city professional and a junkie who are trapped in one of the many time domes of the entity. This is also when the mysterious figure makes its first appearance and toys around with both characters. In The Endless, there were multiple references to elements of Resolution – the storyline of Michael and Chris, an old video clip of Justin and Aaron before they left Camp Arcadia, the trailer of a researcher Michael met who smoked the same red flower those in camp smoked, and the wife of Michael. For those who truly want to understand the second film, they must sit through and follow the storyline of the first.

All in all, The Endless (2018) was a good science fiction film. Directors and all around crew members Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead portrayed excellence in all the film’s aspects which allowed it to be viewed as a high budget film rather than a low budget one.

Kimi no Na wa. (Makoto Shinkai, 2016)

Nowadays, Anime is slowly making its way up the billboard charts. Kimi no Na wa, which translates to Your Name, is a heartwarming Japanese animated romantic fantasy drama film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, produced by Comix Wave Films. The film goes about the story of a typical young highschool girl living in the outskirts of Japan and a boy who ends up swapping bodies with her. The film effectively uses this technique of body swapping to fully unveil the deepest depths of the hearts and minds of both characters, making it such a heart gripping film to watch. Kimi no Na wa is one of the most long-awaited movies of its time, being advertised everywhere in Japan from billboards to convenience stores and retail shops. Part of the confusion people have with Kimi No Nawa is it’s structure. Because Mitsuha exists three years behind Taki, and because the movie randomly jumps between those time periods, the story doesn’t flow in chronological order. Many times it can feel like Kimi No Nawa is purposely leaving out information to trip you up. But all the information you need to understand is actually there. The animation style of the film is very well done, with its incredible attention to detail making it extremely realistic. The theme of Modernization vs. Tradition emphasizes the beauty in details. We are able to see a stark contrast between the lives of the two protagonists in the film. Another beautiful thing about this film is are the traditions and cultures depicted on the screen. There were Shinto traditions such as, serving the Shinto shrine as a maiden or connection between the world and their celestial beings. The way they brought the two characters and worlds through the red string was magnificent. In the Legend of the Red string it is said that those “who are destined to be together are connected from birth by a red thread tied on each of their little fingers.” Which leads to how one can argue that the film’s defining feature is its charming character development. As the two bodies swap in their dreams, one gets to see how they slowly start to develop feelings for each other without even realizing it themselves. This swap opens the characters up to the audience which allows them to fully peer into the minds of the characters. Kimi no Na wa is indeed a masterpiece that may be quite difficult to recreate, because it just manages to find a way to not be cliche and predictable. The bond that the characters share with each other is one that would truly resonate with anyone who watches the film, whether Japanese or not.