Popular reviews

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  Review by meta angel ★★★★★ 1

  my heart aches, why is that?
  ...is this love?

  one of the most wonderful films to watch with someone you cherish, there's an indescribable emotional truth at the center of its vanity that resonates with human vulnerability on such a primordial level... it's got me thinking about how something as simple as walking on the street or across the block with a friend or lover is an affectionate ritual in itself—one that creates a space in which only you and that person exist and all that matters is the collision of your thoughts with theirs, and that's pretty beautiful albeit kinda intense (don't even get me started on driving). on my first viewing, i thought of this as a utopian…

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  Review by Shea Gallagher ★★★★ 1

  It's perhaps hyperbolic to suggest Nobuhiko Obayashi invents a new cinematic language with his films, but so far in my journey with him I can't help but feel like I am seeing the world (and cinema) through different eyes, unearthing feelings that are familiar and recognisable to me but through such unexpected means, giving them a new meaning and a new framework through which they can be explored.

  Obayashi generously primes you for the heightened emotional wavelength on which his films operate; he draws you in with colour and with music, his editing and compositions reflecting and subliminally informing you of the film's own internal logic. This film is a beautiful gift, behind the sweeping adolescent heart of which is…

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  Review by Yongene Wong ★★★★½ 6

  I don't know if there's anything left for me to say about this film, because everytime I want to write something for an Obayashi film I feel like I'm literally reiterating the same words and the same feelings over and over again - but perhaps that is the reason why I'm so drawn to his work. That romanticism of sentimentality and those nostalgic thoughts and memories of youth, immortalised in time, forgotten physically but ever living in that moment; a seemingly normal looking film transforms into a blue screen party, with waves and purple effects scattering and gliding all across the film like we're back in 1977's Hausu once again. And while the visual style certainly calls to that film…

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  Review by Augie 3

  Memories as waves, of varying sizes...always returning, whether we want them to or not....sometimes they come crashing in with unstoppable force, and knock you off your feet...and sometimes they only tickle your toes.

  Obayashi was one of the few filmmakers who actually understood what a fucking privilege it is to be able to make a film. He knew that cinema is one of life's greatest treasures. One of the only people I can think of that clearly deserved to make movies.

  I think a lot of filmmakers today don't understand what a privilege it is to make a film. So I hope as the young filmmakers of the future dive further into his work, they are able to glimpse the…

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  Review by Ayush Das Adhikary ★★★★★ 9

  The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

  The past becomes the present.
  The present becomes the future.

  A love which transcends time. Colour intertwines with monochrome. Lavender bends time and leaves an indelible impression on Yoshiyama's life.

  Nobuhiko Ōbayashi was a genius who did what he wanted with cinema. He worked on a different emotional wavelength. His works possess childlike creativity combined with the skills of a mad scientist of love and peace. His films love life with all its imperfections, and these early works of his could momentarily turn anyone into an optimist. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is like a live action Ghibli feature; more closely resembling Ghibli than even the 2006 adaptation by Mamoru Hosoda. It is…

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  Review by joakim dreams of peace ★★★★★ 6

  Journeys in Space and Time: Nobuhiko Ōbayashi

  Ōbayashi Ranked

  🎶The little girl who conquered time
  Love is a shining boat
  It will surpass the past, the future and the stars
  Catch me in your arms🎶

  "Why does time pass by?"

  A window in time; time isn't the past, it's the future. Might as well be the sole adaptation of Yasutaka Tsutsui's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, by The Japanese Director Who Conquered Cinema. A supernaturally romantic sci-fi flick flying across all dimensions - Nobuhiko Ōbayashi really is the best.

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  Review by based ★★★★★ 3

  i don't have much to say at the moment, but I'll leave you with this much; Obayashi's films are a form, a precarious balance, of delicate chaos - always about the irreparable movement forward, but rendered with such sensitivity as to try and pause oneself in the moment, to hold onto as much life as it can. for me, this gentleness is his most defining attribute as a filmmaker. i can't imagine a more thorough distillation of his preoccupation with memory and the passing of time, and their connection, than what is achieved with this film - and with such psychological richness, at that. about as huge and sweeping as melodrama gets.

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  Review by Kareem 3

  Every film that ends with a musical number has won

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  Review by emma katharine ★★★★½

  when he says don't be a vagabond of time but it's literally all you've ever wanted

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★

  From the outset, the use of color and movement between shots almost resembles animation despite the laid-back, quotidian nature of the scenes of attending school. But the way Yoshitaka Sakamoto's cinematography can literally seem to add and subtract color based on the radiant light emitted by things like flowers, or how the incident that sparks Yoshiyama's break from linear time is filmed abruptly almost like a supernatural horror—all sharp angles and metallic tones—makes even a classroom feel like the director's playground. The whole thing is so dreamy even before the strangeness starts, placing the most banal moments within the context of that strange, retro/lo-fi sci-fi opening.

  The elegance of how Obayashi takes in the village and its residents, the camera…

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  Review by Drew Edelstein ★★★★½

  Obayashi's films embrace camp and surrealistic editing like no other, but as I begin my journey into the core of his filmography, the humanistic center that grounds his fantastical visions only becomes more apparent. Here, his fixation with youth and nostalgia is at the forefront. As Kazuko inadvertently becomes entangled within the supernatural forces of time and space, she undergoes a journey of self-discovery, finding purpose within her life while affirming the memories and bonds that made her who she is. This isn't a radical plot by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, the way in which it was repurposed and clarified in Mamoru Hosoda's animated adaptation/sequel to the same source material shows just how perfunctory the mechanics of…

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  Review by will ★★★★★ 2

  the way obayashi lingers on the faces of the elderly couple at the end of the film—juxtaposed with the general conceit of the film? all feeling, all sensation. the slow establishing in the frame of a lived-in world, with emphasis on the stars, earth and the moon. the ephemeral way in which the mundane routines of lives lived are captured. people in uniforms walking to class and then taking the same path back to their homes and the cycle repeats. it reminded me of night on the galactic railroad from the first sequence with the bright shining stars projected behind the three of them. and for a film in which scars are images which evoke cherished memories, so too is…