Strong and Moving!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Hiroko loses her lover Fujii to a mountain climbing accident. Two years later, involved with his buddy, she struggles to overcome her grief.Itsuki experienced puppy love-hate with a boy in school who coincidentally had the exact same name. Oh, and she can't shake a nasty cold.Hiroko and Itsuki live at opposite ends of Japan, do not know each other, but could pass for twins.From such small, incidental, trivial fragments of life Iwai weaves together a magical, deeply cathartic film. Hiroko and Itsuki exist in the same temporal moment, but travel through metaphysical time in opposite directions with regard to their feelings towards Fujii. Hiroko retreats from her love in order to grieve properly, and finally let go. Itsuki inches towards her memory of Fujii, finally waking up to the realisation that he was her first love. Neither Hiroko or Itsuki can make the journey without the other, their dialectical relationship propelling them both towards a confrontation of sorts with Fujii. Hiroko will bellow through her confrontation at a mountainside at dawn. A prosaic message, mundane even, one that repeats the first letter written in the film, but one that manages, as Hiroko cries it out again and again, to touch your soul. Itsuki is to be blind-sided by Fujii, when the secret of his obscure library-card project is revealed in a simple scribble, and Itsuki's fragile hopes come to fruition.There are truly funny moments in this film - Itsuki pedalling the bike to provide light for Fujii to read, Ranran's manic take as the class nutter, and most of all the nervous laugh of Itsuki's unthinking uncle. It is also very touching at times, such as when the grandfather says he will not walk to the hospital, he will run (and then wonderfully undercut when he falls flat on his face). The whole thing together shimmers with a purity and vitality that words cannot do justice to, the photography has to be seen. Love Letter is a masterpiece from a living genius.

Love Letter is an unconventional love story. For starters, there isn't an direct romantic interactions between the lead characters it wants to focus on. Most stories would have romantic scenes played out in chronological order, and the audience journeys together with the leads on their road to togetherness. Love Letter makes an audience work - it doesn't present the material outright, but rather in sporadic memory recollections. Neither does it have the formulaic boy-meets-girl-loses-girl-wins-girl sequence. In fact, we begin with a funeral anniversary, and the sense of loss made permanent.There are multiple story arcs in Love Letter, but the main one that engages the audience to find out more, is the one between Hiroko Watanabe (Miho Nakayama) and her fiancé Itsuki Fujii, whom we never meet, but meet only the teenage Itsuki (Takashi Kashiwabara) instead. Hiroko has lost her fiancé two years ago, but refuses to let go. Instead, at the spur of a moment, she copies down the address where he stayed at when he was young, and sent a letter to the address, knowing jolly well that redevelopment has caused the house to stand no more, and her letter will be akin to one sent to Heaven. To her surprise, she receives a reply from Itsuki Fujii, and unravelling the identity of the new Itsuki, discovers that she is someone who bears the same name as her fiancé, and even shared a moment in time together as classmates.The two girls never interact directly (even thought they're played by the same actress), but through their correspondence, we learn more about the life of the boy in question, one which relied on Itsuki's memory to bring to life for Hiroko to dwell in. And there might be a hint why Itsuki the boy had come to choose Hiroko too, perchance also based on his memory with his namesake. Being a quiet guy, expressing his feelings never is easy, but he demonstrates his affections in some quirky manner instead. Thus a very interesting love triangle develops, though one which involves different timelines, and one which never is loud in expression, choosing instead to focus on the subtleties. You wonder when you move on, whether you'll seize the moment with someone who resembles an old flame, though that applies in looks alone, as character will definitely be different, and Miho Nakayama managed to bring differences to the two characters she played, even though it didn't include having massive makeup or wardrobe changes, but relied a lot on subtle movements and behaviour.Besides the main arc, there are also other arcs on love in the movie, specifically the new budding love between Hiroko and new flame Akiba Shigeru (Etsushi Toyokawa), who tries his best to help Hiroko let go of the past, but yet standing by her when she struggles to do so, and that amongst the family of Itsuki (the female), whose grandfather (Katsuyuki Shinohaara) had a pivotal role in a rather touching scene involving love and loss. The excellent soundtrack by Remedios also accentuates the many beautiful moments in the movie, its main theme is memorable and I believe already a recognizable classic.Die hard romantics will definitely see a difference in how a story like this gets told by writer- director Shunji Iwai, and therein likes its appeal. It goes against the grain and doesn't wrap everything up in saccharine sweet moments. However, in its digging up past memories, and controlling the flashbacks in a very measured way without serving to confuse, actively engages you to think and feel for the cha racters, and providing the space to do so.

What a heartwarming little movie this is, with its little grace notes of humanity embellishing what is, in essence, a simple tale of love lost and found. A bereaved young woman pens a whimsical letter to his dead lover at his old hometown across Japan, and is surprised to learn that the letter has been routed to his exact namesake, another young lady, who also happens to be his former classmate during his younger days. A delicate actress called Miho Nakayama is cast in the double role of fiancé and ex-schoolmate of the deceased. Comparisons to Kieslowkski or Lynch may spring immediately to mind. However, "Love Letter" is nothing like an intensive meditation on fate and serendipity. Instead, it is a bittersweet tale of discovery, both of oneself and also of the ones you love, and ultimately closure. There are some great moments in this film that resonate with feeling, like when an old man must carry a very sick grand-daughter to the hospital in a driving snow-storm. An assured script and direction, beautiful wide screen cinematography and a pretty score all add to the atmosphere. The film eventually bursts into unabashed expression, in an unforgettable final scene. Just lovely!(major, major spoiler below! Don't read if you haven't seen the film).In certain comments, people have either criticized as being unrealistic or concluded that the casting of M. Nakayama as both female protagonists as being a logistic or financial decision. I think that misses an important point. What this presumably odd piece of casting was meant to show was that the deceased actually ended up marrying (or got engaged to) a woman who looks quite similar to his childhood love. This happens in life, that is, we do tend to choose people who look similar. So the casting choice was a bit of a stroke of genius, especially in light of the revelatory final scene (and what a scene that is!). Very nice touch.

Iwai Shunji's first film to receive high critical acclaim, _Love Letter_ is a gorgeous movie starring the lovely Nakayama Miho in two roles that of Watanabe Hiroko,a young woman who loss her fiancé in a mountaineering accident and Fujii Itsuki a librarian fighting a truly nasty cold.After going to memorial service to honor her dead fiancé, Hiroko travels with her would have been mother-in-law to her house. There she looks in her deceased fiancé's junior high school year book and discovers that he was from Otaru, a town in Hokkaido, and she copies down his address that was listed in the reference in the back of the book.For sentimental reasons sends a letter to her dead fiancé's, Fujii Itsuki's, old home. What's this? Didn't I write earlier that Fujii Itsuki was a woman? Well, she is. There were two students named "Fujii Itsuki" at the junior high school. After a dumbfounded Itsuki receives the letter, she responds to it. Hiroko, obviously not expecting to receive a letter, is happy to receive one, and, in the cloud of her fiancé's memory, believes that it might actually be from him.Her new romantic interest Akiba, Toyokawa Etsushi, although he too mourns the loss of his friend, he was on the same moutaineering trip, he wants Hiroko to release the memory of her dead fiancé and accept him as her only romantic interest.After Akiba and Hiroko learn that this Itsuki is a female, they travel to Otaru and search for her. Although Hiroko and Itsuki do encounter each other, they do not converse, but soon after Hiroko returns home, she and Itsuki begin a long term exchange of letters in which Itsuki dictates all of her memories of the male Fujii Itsuki.This a very moving film that shows off the beauty of northern Japan quite well. The snow covered landscapes are absolutely breathtaking. This movie is quite melancholy, not only because of the grief Hiroko experiences because she loss her fiancé, but also because of some of the revelations she makes after corresponding with the female Itsuki for so long. Itsuki's story is quite sad also because she learns things of the past that were not clear to her at the time she was a junior high school student.However, that does not mean that this film is without humor. Nakayama Miho does a wonderful job acting the part of the bubbly Itsuki whose attitude towards people and surroundings is a breath of fresh air in comparison to Watanabe Hiroko. A great film.