Love Letter

I'm still trying to decide whether SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY is the greatest movie ever made or not. If it were the greatest movie of all time, you'd think it would be a bit better known surely? But I really can't think of any movie I've ever seen that was better. This is obviously something of a difficult position for Shunji Iwai to find himself in, in relation to me. If the first movie of his that I saw was the greatest movie ever, then surely no matter what efforts he goes to he's never really going to impress me again.

Knowing that SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY is very different to the rest of his filmography, in terms of themes and sheer scale of the production, I was quite apprehensive about paddling deeper into Shunji Iwai waters. The rest of his movies don't/didn't really sound like "my sort of thing".

LOVE LETTER is based on a strange premise of unlikely coincidence. Two years after his death, Itsuki Fujii's fiance Hiroko (Miho Nakayama) is still having a hard time moving on with her life. When she comes across his old address in his high school yearbook, Fujii's mother tells her that the house was demolished for a highway years ago. Hiroko hence figures that it is safe to send a letter there, seeking closure.

"Itsuki Fujii, O' Genki desu ka?", she writes. "Genki Desu, Hiroko Watanabe".

("How are you, I am well")

Not the most heartfelt expression of mourning, it must be said. Still it makes her feel better... but when she receives a reply to the letter she is a little confused.

"Mostly well... but I have a cold now. Itsuki Fujii"

Is it a letter from heaven? She would like to believe it is. The viewer, however, knows that the reply is actually from a different Itsuki Fujii - a woman (Miho Nakayama) who lives in the same town where Hiroko's fiance grew up. Once the confusion is eventually cleared up, Hiroko and Itsuki begin to write to each other as pen-pals. It turns out that Itsuki Fujii (female) was in the same class as Itsuki Fujii (male), so she tells Hiroko stories and memories from her youth.

The attentive amongst you may have noticed that Miho Nakayama is credited twice above. No, it's not an even more unlikely same-name co-incidence. The same actress plays both Hiroko and Itsuki... I suppose it worked out cheaper that way. The movie is hence hinged heavily upon her performance(s), as most of the 115 minutes is filled with her either writing or reading letters to/from herself.

Thankfully, she is absolutely fantastic in both roles. I think I would have cast her as all the other characters too if I were directing. Thankfully, Shunji Iwai is more sensible than me and kept it to a more manageable 2 parts.

A movie about 2 people writing letters to each other sounds kind of boring, right? The movie is filled with such gorgeous music and imagery that it never gets at all boring though, and Miho Nakayama has such a beautiful voice (and face for that matter) that I could happily listen to her talk for a very long time.

It's not all letter writing though - we also get invited in to see all the little details of both women's lives, and through flashbacks we see quite a bit of the two Itsukis' youth as well (the young actor & actress playing these roles are also very good).

You probably gathered by now that I enjoyed the movie... a lot in fact. It is an absolutely beautifully crafted piece of cinema in every aspect, and utterly fascinating and beautiful to watch. It's a slow movie... at nearly 2 hours it could maybe have benefited from the tiniest bit of editing perhaps... but an incredibly powerful one. I have to admit that it left me in tears when it finished, and I doubt if there are a dozen other movies that have ever had that effect on me.

There is no doubt in my mind that Shunji Iwai is a god of modern cinema. His movies are so well crafted it's almost like he's ripping his talent out of his body and shoving it right up in your face... but not quite so disturbing as that would be. Kurosawa, Kubrick, Iwai... not sounding incongrous to me at the moment. All demonstrate a transcendent understanding of film as a medium, and make almost every other film maker out there look like an amateur!

Okay, at first view I had to admit the dialogue and the the intercourse between the people seemed rather incongruous and false, somehow very strange in terms of social relations and interrelations, but, the second time, man it's it just might be Japanese mental setting that differs from the usual Hollywood stuff, still, the Idea, I mean, I'm a Poet and appreciate this kind of playing, that s what I thought, but man, its everything but, its, just so true, and think about it sending a letter to a dead sweetheart, its sentimental but also very true in the poetic sense of the word, and the dualism, the way the persons intertwine, all this is very unwestern and refreshing, since this movie was the directors breakthrough in the west.

And well, in the summer of 2005 I didn't understand this movie, tried to analyze it as I watched, but then at the end when the music started I cried, all thru the credits, it was purifying, a very true experience a very true movie, very touching, very poetic, and VERY Japanese.

The best movie I've seen.

This is one of the best romantic movies in my life. It doesn't have a kiss scene or even a hug scene like typical Hollywood movies, except for scenes recalling the past. The setting of the movie is winter in Japan. The director Suhnji Iwai made this film with many poetic scenes. I can recall the time when I was in high school. This movie reminded me of the pure feeling of love.

Hiroko (Miho Nakayama) goes to her ex-boyfriend's memorial service. Itsuki Fujii died on a mountain climbing accident two years ago. When she visits the house of her ex-boyfriend's mother, she finds his high school year book and takes notes of his address. She struggles to overcome the grief coming from losing him at that moment. She sends a letter to Itski Fujii because of romantic reason. Surprisingly, she receives an answer from him. Hiroko knows the address does not exist any longer after it was demolished for a highway construction.

Another female, Itsuki Fujii is a Hiroko's ex-schoolmate who shared the school days with him. Coincidentally she has the same name Itsuki Fujii and she tells many stories about male Itsuki's school life when they were young. Corresponding with letters for that time between them, Hiroko looks back on Itsukii's past and feels slightly jealous about female Itsukii. Moreover, female Itsukii finds another truth that she didn't know about the past. It seems like they are in a love triangle beyond time.

Miho Nakayama plays roles of two women-Hiroko and female Itski -at the same time. Her acting is impressive, especially her crying monologue is very famous. The story is sad but she does not play her role with grief all the time. She acts with the sad feeling in moderation. With her beautiful voice, her acting sparkles pure and elegant.

The director made this film with special camera effects. Some parts of this movie don't have the clear scene and instead he used the foggy, dreamlike scene intentionally. I think he wants to express his feeling with great delicacy, not directly.

Considering only this story, it may look boring but it isn't boring at all while I watch this movie. It is filled with enormous mountain views and poetic music. The background piano music is very popular among people.

In this film, the actors don't say many words but we can feel more than their lines because the dialogue is full of suggestions.The images from this movie still linger in my mind.

Love Letter: 9/10

The first 30+ minutes of "Love Letter" were quite boring, but if you ever watched the movie again, knowing how the plot unfolds, they'd be anything but boring. The premise of this is cool and a little creepy: a woman, enstranged by her husband's untimely death, sends a letter to his old address. She knows that the house was knocked down and built over by a highway years ago, but does it anyway, perhaps out of desperation. Unexpectedly, she gets a reply. From there, the story begins, and it takes a much different direction than how the plot sounds on paper. I can't really say too much without spoiling it, but this is a tragic movie, yet beautiful at the same time. There are flashback sequences that make you really care about several characters in the movie, including the deceased man (who is shown as a school boy in the flashbacks). This is so well set out, and almost brought me to tears at times. Movies like this are what make me want to see more and more Asian cinema, because this was an absolute epic.

Carl Jung said "What is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate". For Hiroko Watanabe, the passing of two years has not lessened the pain brought on by the death of her young fiancé, Itsuki Fujii (Takashi Kashiwabara) in a mountain climbing accident. She longs for healing but is unable to let go of his sudden death. Fate intervenes, however, and a single letter she writes to her deceased lover as a whim sets in motion a chain of events that allows her to discover the untold secrets of their connection. Written and directed by Shunji Iwai and based on his novel of the same name, Love Letter is a simple but very moving love story about two people who must redeem the past in order to be fully alive in the present.

While looking through her fiancé's old school yearbook after the memorial ceremony, Hiroko wants to find something of Itsuki that she can hold onto, some token that will allow her to let go. Finding his name in the yearbook, she jots down the address associated with the name Itsuki Fujii and mails a short letter addressed to him in Otaro in northern Japan. She asks "How are you? and tells him, "I am fine". Thinking that she is sending a letter to heaven, she is supported by Akiba (Etsushi Toyokawa), a close friend of Itsuki who has fallen in love with her and strongly wants her to complete the past. To her surprise she receives a reply and, after the exchange of several letters, discovers that her correspondent is not a disembodied spirit but a very alive woman with the same exact name as her fiancé. Even more astonishing is that both male and female Itsuki Fujiis were classmates together in Junior High School.

While there is some initial confusion stemming from the fat that both Hiroko and the female Itsuki are performed by the superb Miho Nakayama in a dual role, each character's personality is so individual that any confusion is soon dispelled. As the letters continue, Itsuki uncovers some hidden truths about herself, her father's death, and her relationship with the shy student with the same name. Bringing to light memories from the past that she had long buried, she remembers how they were teased by fellow classmates for having the same name, how they developed a bond while working together in the library, and how the male Itsuki, checking out books from the library, wrote his name on five checkout cards saying to her in English "straight flush".

Sensing that Hiroko's quest for completion has reached a dead end, Akiba takes her on a trip to Otaru to meet the female Itsuki and to search for some memento of her fiancé. In a memorable scene in which, in the words of author Marion Woodman, "the eternal crosses the transitory", Hiroko cries out to the mountain that holds the body of her lost love, "O-genki desu ka? "Watashi wa genki desu", "How are you? I am fine", and the words echo through the winter night to be repeated by the female Itsuki sitting in her home miles away.

Love Letter is a film of exquisite cinematic poetry that explores the subjectivity of memory and the idea of redemption. Author Robertson Davies says, "One always learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence" Like gemstones of coral and quartz that fill our life with joy, Itsuki Fujii came into the lives of two young women, then as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone, yet now both Hiroko and the female Itsuki have established a strange connection and are, in the words of Elizabeth Lesser, "no longer dead, but alive with something luminous and solid burning in their core".