Rent Your Name. (2016)

Your Name. (aka Kimi no na wa.) review by Adrijan Arsovski - Cinema Paradiso

Your Name (Kimi no Kawa) is a transcending, surreal, nostalgic, and a heartwarming movie-going experience coming from the mind of none other than genius Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai. In fact, this film can be safely and without precedence put up there with some of the greatest animated Japanese classics such as the emotional and heartbreaking tales that Studio Ghibli often builds. To this extent, Your Name exults a melancholic atmosphere, a fully fleshed-out world, and a deep sense of both visual and emotional wonder that leaves you, well, wonder. A true masterpiece in the whole semantic sense of the word, Your Name is just plain amazing.

Right off the bat, let’s just all agree that Your Name is a visual masterpiece. The animation is chock-full of life, breaming with glorious details, breathtaking backgrounds, and a colour palette that would put Picasso to shame. Honestly, the way Your Name utilises colour, shadows, and shapes is staggering and nothing short of amazing. But enough with the bad parts.

Where Kimi no Kawa excels is definitely its unique story. In full Shinkai style, the film is a slow-paced contemplation on the reality of human existence, what means to be alive and more importantly, to which extent one can go in order to beat the threads of fate (or lack thereof). And so, Shinkai employs metaphorical imagery to invoke a sense of equal measure nostalgia and dread of times past gone, of that which can be never attained, and of raw human emotion in its purest, unadulterated form. Which brings me to my next point.

The film’s main vehicle is its emotionally lost and physically anchored characters. What I mean by this is the characters are dreamers (lousy pun intended) insofar their fates go; they are also bound by the rules of physics, and work towards breaking them in order to learn bigger truths in life. Truths that burst through themselves, float disguised as external means or fatal flaws, and come back around to fulfill these characters’ inner discovery and growth. Eventually, their self-discovery (albeit with the help of some mysticism) liberates them from the chains of everyday life, and guides them towards what they truly wanted the whole time: to be understood.

The technicalities of Your Name are nothing short of amazing, especially the animation (if it wasn’t apparent enough), the quality of sound design, and the editing which pulls everything together into a cohesive whole. And when combined with the jaw-clenching storytelling, Your Name becomes truly a masterpiece of its Zeitgeist and something to be revered and praised upon for years to come.

All things considered, Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name is awesome, and if you haven’t seen it yet – well then shame on you. Seriously, rent this masterpiece and thank me later.