The Garden of Words (2013)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

When watching a movie, I always look for visual techniques first. I always love viewing camera pans and camera angles with messages hidden within the cinematography. People ask me why I watch anime, and my reason is the same as my friends and many others: it's so creative and just so beautiful. You appreciate the time and effort that took to draw every smile and every blink. If you even remotely like visuals, you will adore the visuals in this one. Holy moly! I have never seen a movie this visually stunning.Garden of Words is about two people, a fifteen year old student and a twenty seven year old woman that coincidentally meet up in the same park, on the same seats in the same positions, under the same shelter every time when it rains. The both form an unlikely friendship as the two though both varying in age are very similar. Now if this idea fell into the wrong hands it could have ended so badly, by making a creepy movie, more than this gorgeous one. This is because of the fantastic direction from Shinkai.The story is so simple, as it didn't need to be anything else. I have read other reviews and they say the story is very cheesy. But I didn't mind. I thought the way the story was told ever so slightly in a short forty six minute movie still worked and amazed me. The characters too are quite simple, and when they become more attached to each other open different aspects of themselves that I didn't expect. It made for an entertaining experience. I found it beautiful that there's messages in certain scenes and when these two characters are together. For example the movie even up to the last few minutes want to persuade us that they are together yet so apart. Even though these two are close, there is so much they don't know about each other and this line in many scenes represents the disconnect. For example at the edge of a door is in between them, on another scene a twig is placed, in this very scene he says while laughing a holding her foot, says in his head "...I don't even know her name."The visuals and soundtrack, are nothing less that phenomenal. The way the trees sway with the slight breeze, from the sunlight peeping over the clouds, to the hailing smoke of storm, to the aftermath of it all and watching the last raindrop fall from a leaf is simply spectacular. Even with the absence of music, whenever it comes on, it fits and sets the mood.I really loved the editing. It caught you off guard. There's a scene under the shelter where it looks like a storm will push the protagonists away as the sound grows louder but then the next scene it's silent. Or when a character sprints at the screen and the camera immediately switches to a car wheel. It may sound confusing when I try to explain it, but you will definitely pick up on it when you see it.I know I congratulated the film makers in making a well rounded and beautiful story in 46 minutes, but I think that the pacing was a bit of a hit and miss. There's times that the scene tends to drag on when nothing is happening and some scenes that fly by too quickly that could have grown on the characters. The Garden of Words is a movie you can watch at any time as it's short in length. Even through it's pacing is awkward it has a nice story with relatible characters. Spot on sound effects with a beautiful score. And also a movie that will fly far past your expectations of visual animation in cinema.Overall : A-Head here for move reviews like this one : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfNozbWd9SJYYwLK2zYn_AA

I wonder what would have happened if his 30 year old teacher didn't look like an 18 year old model but rather like a fat and ugly hag. Would've changed the story quite a bit I guess because basically this 15 year old sniveler is just physically attracted by that hot random girl. Overall this film is so flat, dumb and superficial, I really wonder what kind of people watch it and actually get emotionally involved. I'll rate it 2/10 because there were probably many talented animators involved who put a lot of effort into the really nice visuals. Apart from that it's a film solely made for teenagers in puberty who "can relate" to being so damn special.

It's hard to describe an emotion. I think that, for that very same reason, is hard to describe this movie. The way I feel when I watch Makoto Shinkai's movies is indescribable. The way he captures the concept of time and space is something that I've never seen before and that's exactly why I absolutely LOVE his movies.The reliefs and textures in his images make me feel that I could stretch my hand into the screen and perfectly perceived the distance between the different layers. The sense of loneliness, the sense of the time passing by can be easily felt and the music... it's like if the movie was created to fit that music instead of composing the music to fit the movie.It's truly a masterpiece.

With it's short length of only 45 minutes, it's hard to call this a full movie - although don't let that deter you, as it's still better than most that I have seen, anime or otherwise.When you hear about this movie one of the things that get repeated mention is it's visuals, and I concur. It's probably the most well made anime from a visuals standpoint. The story isn't bad either, for only 45 minutes it sets up and tell a surprisingly deep and moving story. It is simplistic storytelling, but still very powerful. It is somewhat reminiscent of one of the director's previous films, 5 Centimetres Per Second, in that it uses a similarly "simple" story but one that relates strongly to emotions and situations felt by normal human beings. I also think this is a great movie to show people who normally don't like anime, as anime very often have different storytelling than I think many are used to. This one is more grounded without many of the "fantasy" elements that most anime's have.The plot summary on IMDb do just fine setting up the story so I wont bother explaining it, it would just be redundant.