Blue

When I watched this move, I felt that Japan is a beautiful country. Filmed in provincial cities of Niigata, and Takaoka (Toyama prefecture) Blue captures the lives of two high school girls from Spring to Autumn.

The movie is beautiful in many ways, but especially in the way each scenes are shot. Director Hiroshi Ando is a veteran of directing youth oriented movies, but also has an eye for sharp clean images.

Mikako Ichikawa who played Kayako Kirishima won the best actress award at the 24th International Movie Festival in Moscow with this movie.

The movie that's written, and acted by Gen-X writer and actors has all the subdued feelings of that generation.

Both Mikako Ichikawa and Manami Konishi are models, and are unusually tall for Japanese women, Ichikawa hitting 5'7", and Konishi at 5'6" tall.

Both Ichikawa, and Konishi has successful career as actors, and are familiar faces in Japanese TV now.

I liked this movie for the beautiful imagery. The small stories that's inserted as the scene changes were almost like moving poems. I wanted to see more of relation between Endo, and Kirishima but the movie just kept going without drastic change in the flow.

The movie is well crafted and is definitely worth seeing.

If you're interested in visiting the areas that this movie was shot, here are the locations:

Niigata City:

Mandaibashi bridge by route 7

Furumachi Mall

Niigata station (West side connector pass)

Keiwagakuen High School (The art room scene)

Takaoka City (Toyama prefecture):

Fushiki High school (Near JR Etchu-Kokubu station)

Blue is one of those artsy films that portrays itself as smart and classy by being very slow and low-key. Which can be great, if done properly. But is utterly boring if executed poorly, which is the case for Blue.

The barely-there plot is simple and can easily be summed up in a paragraph. If you read a synopsis, you'll pretty much know what it's all about. But that's OK right? You don't need plot if you've got a solid character study. Well, that's also a problem, as the central romance revolves around two introverted girls with little personality and even less to say. I was completely unable to care about the characters, who barely seem to care about each other. Nobody ever really seems happy in this movie. Emotions are muted and smiles are rare. They never have a convincing reason to love each other, which I suppose is not unrealistic, but it's not interesting. Everything is so internalized that there's nothing to see.

Then there's the cinematography, which should be the saving grace but isn't. Scenes are well-structured and shot, but are constantly of such boring material that it doesn't matter. The editing is fit for a three-toed sloth, with scenes routinely lasting five beats longer than they should or having no reason for existing than to realistically depict the dull monotony of life. Occasionally, there's some great visuals to be had. There's a beautiful twilight shot towards the end of the two girls in front of a vending machine that illuminates one while leaving the other a silhouette. However, such moments are fleeting, and the vast majority of the film is visually bland. Also, there is almost no soundtrack, so it's not even an interesting film sound-wise.

If you're interested in this film, I suggest you read the manga first. It's got better pacing and is only a single volume long. The film adapts the basic story, but also changes quite a bit. The two have their similarities, but feel quite different.

I know there is sure to be a niche audience for this sort of thing, but it's not me, nor will it be the average viewer. It may resonate more if you're gay or can at least identify with the characters. For me though, it was just unforgivably boring. Know what you're getting into and approach with caution.

'Blue' is a beautiful movie, speaking of it's cinematography. The visual aspect is what I enjoyed the most, and despite common opinions that the scenes were too long and the movie could be much shorter I belive it's what makes the movie so unique and compelling.

'Blue' made me feel melancholic and nostalgic. I think it depicts teenage love in a very realistic way, as a slow, sometimes hard to understand or explain emotion, that may be disappointing and unforgiving at times, which is comforting to see on screen and makes up for a great movie.

It's definitely a movie for sad sapphic girls, who experienced unrequited love or for those who wished for a diffrent ending to their love story and I highly recomend it.

After thousand of years, love is a deep and hard thing, even loving and staying in peace with your partner it's hard, you still feel some "pain" to think that you're not the right person or something.

This movie is not just about two girls in love and their problems, but love in general, you don't need a full reason to like someone, you just like and that's it, relationships don't have an instruction manual, when you love someone, you gotta do two things: love them and never hurt them, of course, not gonna be perfect, and that's love in his pure form.

I really like this film, not just the story but the cinematography, beautiful as well.

I watched the movie and my initial reaction is that I liked it. Though produced in a probably small budget the movie manages to capture beautiful portrait-like scenes, almost like the still life paintings central to the plot. The ambiance sound blends perfectly well with the film scenes, you become immersed in the film's world.

The spirit of the manga remains in the movie, some elements from the source material were changed but the movie's message is how destructive your decisions can be. We see Endo and Kirishima making decisions that will break the hearts of people they care about. They don't make those decisions with malice, they are just two young students.

The manga's minimalist art is translated into film successfully, not using a constant soundtrack, or quick edits. Instead the music is used subtly, only used in important milestones in the relationship of the main characters.

The acting and dialogue is minimal, the camera is detached and many times we're far from the actors' faces, so the actors make full use of body language, making scenes look like theater. The result is in my opinion delightful and adds tension toward the film's climax and other crucial revealing scenes.

Very good story, acting, photography, and soundtrack (both ambient and music). however some scenes could've been snipped that were not crucial to the plot.