Sakura (17) has a lot of plans in life, but little time: she has been diagnosed with a terminal illness regarding her pancreas. When her classmate Haruki goes to a hospital after an appendix removal, he finds Sakura's diary and reads about her disease. Sakura refuses to tell anyone from the class about it, and wants to spend her last few months alive with Haruki helping her do all the things she always wanted. He accepts, even though he is a loner and only reads novels. They spend the time in a restaurant, traveling with a train to a different city, spending the night in a hotel, playing video games... Sakura's friend Kyoko does not understand why she is absent so often. Unexpectedly, Sakura is killed in a criminal attack on the street. Haruki changes and asks Kyoko to be his friend.
Yoru Sumino's deeply moving story about a girl with a terminal disease who gets a guy to help her achieve her bucket list was adapted into this tender anime that laughs, saddens, terrifies, devastates, rebuilds, questions and makes the viewers think about life, death, lost chances, purpose and meaning of existence on Earth, whereas its probably most impressive act is how the director Shinichiro Ushijima manages to make even the most seemingly routine, normal or ordinary sequences seem to have much more of a value later on, in retrospect, when the storyline makes a full circle. The tragic heroine Sakura refuses to be a typical melodramatic cliche of a victim, and is instead a fascinatingly happy and cheerful person, refusing to tell anyone about her illness except Haruki, with a stand-out monologue she has that rejects isolationism and embraces people who give each other meaning: "If you are always alone, how can you know if you even exist? I think the relationships we have with other people are what shows that we are truly alive in this world. My heart only exists because of all the people in my life right now." Two sequences are masterful: the first one is when the two protagonists have to spend a night in a hotel, and Sakura challenges Haruki to truth or dare, but when he chooses dare, she orders him to sleep in the same bed. The other is the dramatic sequence in her room, where she suddenly grabs him from behind and implies she wants to experience "something naughty" before she dies, and the lighting changes from bright to dark-moody in this corner where they are now. Remarkably, the story ends with a second conclusion than expected, the one focusing on Haruki and his change from a loner who is only interested in novels to someone who truly decides to embrace life to the fullest and form new relations with people. Despite a tragic story, "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" is a film that turns into a celebration of life: Ushijima achieved a small "home run" for anime.
Grade:+++
No comments:
Post a Comment