Hikari o oikakete

This is a wonderul movie.

It is an unusual but fascinating love story between two teenagers, Maki, a strange, solemn and sullen beautiful girl living seclusion in a farm, not even bothering to go to school anymore, and Akira, a boy who recently returned from Tokyo with his father, feeling anger about it and having hardship reconnect to his old community, feeling an outsider.

The story takes places in Akita, a remote, relatively poor, but probably the most beautiful (at least for me) prefecture in Japan.

It is a very complex movie showing contemporary problems of Japan: depopulating countryside through low births; people moving to big cities, beautifully reflected in the main story line of closing the school of the city due to not enough children to keep it up; locals trying to find a way out to live in Tokyo for example, some ending up coming back, the hardship of agriculture and the livelihood of farmers; the challenge of how to revitalise the countryide to keep its population vibrant; and ijime (bullying), always a problem everywhere. The malncholic rhythm and painful story slowly flows to positive territory with the important message that, there is always light at the end of the tunnel and darkness is followed by it. As its title says: Follow the light!

This is a must see movie, not just to people interested in Japan, it delivers a universal message.