1
This review may contain spoilers
There are two ways to live in this world
There are two ways to live in this world - one is relying on free will, believing that everything that happens is due to human actions in the past. The second is believing in the theory of destiny: everything that happens is a gift of predestined fate. And whether it was destiny that led me to wander the internet waiting for a good film and then without hesitation watch "First Love," or free will that urged me to spend 8 hours on Yae and Namiki's love story, clearly, this was still a truly wonderful gift.
Slow and deliberate, "Hatsukoi" initially paints a somewhat melancholic and quiet scene, with frames of imagery mixed with nostalgia and sorrow. That is maturity - the yellowish film tone, scenes focusing on poetic times - late afternoon or late night, on empty highways, the night shifts of the two main characters, the curves and dim streetlights. But then surprisingly, stories interspersed with the breath of past youth, and "First Love" takes us back to the naive dreams of the 2000s, when the female lead Noguchi Yae had not yet become a divorced taxi driver with a child, when the male lead Namiki Haruimichi was still healthy and not yet a security guard at the Aurora building. Then they were nothing but young people full of dreams, they had nothing but the madness of being 15, 16 years old. Loving someone seemed like everything, confessions of love spoken like lifetime promises.
"People have a 1/6,000,000 chance to meet their soulmate, so our meeting is already a miracle."
I feel so fortunate that the film wasn't just a single movie. The way each episode explores a different story in their lives, bringing a piece and then carefully attaching them to the overall picture, takes viewers to each color patch of the grand puzzle. Therefore, not only divided between school days and adulthood, the film explores the aspects of missed opportunities, the floating skies in between. Not just tears and smiles, the story reflected before us also has quiet head tilts, wistful sighs, questions of why, "if-then" propositions full of incompleteness. A slight laugh, a bow of the head, cherry blossoms falling, Hokkaido snow melting, memories disappearing like a passing breeze.
Although the film doesn't tell a particularly gentle love story - how could it be normal when two people who love each other by destiny must miss each other because of fate, because Yae lost her memory of her first love in a car accident, because Namiki still remembered her for so many years, embracing a hopeless piece of love while watching his youth slip away, the weathering storms taking away his rebelliousness. Focusing on contrasting scenes, the silences, the way stories are suggested from tiny details that have surprising influence, along with scenes as gentle as the inherent appearance of the countryside, the bustling crowds with flashes of suffocating loneliness in Tokyo, the wonderful love of the main couple relies on fate to overcome fate itself.
Because:
"Every meeting and parting is perhaps guided by destiny. Anything that happens is an unchangeable piece in life."
Then, after missing twenty years, full of changes that had occurred, they meet again, so that the boy who once dreamed of joining the air force to be cool, to protect his loved ones, now retired, returned as a middle-aged man preparing for marriage again, could hear the voice of the former driver who once dreamed of becoming a flight attendant, among 2 million people living in Tokyo, the glamorous capital.
"Airplanes have a speed called V1, that speed divides fate. When flying below this speed, you can cancel the takeoff. But once you exceed this speed, no matter what, you must fly. Life perhaps has a few important moments like that. What do you want? Face the unpredictable wind? Or wait for favorable winds and fly with them."
While asking Tsuzura, perhaps he was asking himself. Whether he should wait for that wind to come, or step up, "cut his nails beautifully" to seize the opportunity that comes, and "don't forget to paint them cute" as little Uta said. Not only telling the past, present, future in parallel, the film tells many different stories revolving around many characters, relationships that overlap yet go alongside, like family relationships, choices that later make people wonder if they were the right ones, partings that at the time people didn't know were goodbyes, sadness people don't know why they feel. Just that, but "First Love" has told a long, complete, and truly clever story. Every action or word, emotion and choice of the characters is reasonable for them, and takes the story to different turns, but also like the image of the curve we encounter at the beginning of the film, throughout Yae's taxi rides, going along with our steps wandering with the characters, destiny leads us in circles, the starting point ultimately blends with the ending point. Perhaps that is the artistic intention of the filmmakers, to show us that even if we go in the wrong direction or get lost, even if "continuing on a path we know is wrong is hell," just keep going, and naturally, as if inevitable, as if predestined, going full circle, people who love each other will meet. Miracles, divine, God, destiny, First Love closes with love, perhaps finally. Yae becomes a flight attendant, Namiki is a pilot, Tsuzura and Uta become the best artists. She regains the memory of her youthful love, he finds her smile again, they find each other, go together, fly together with dreams thought to be gathering dust, thought to have gone forever with the journeys back and forth, the winding roads extending endlessly through the years, through Tokyo's smoke and dust. And the film also ends there. Ending at a new beginning.
Honestly, from the first introductory words, my expectations for the film soared high, I knew this would be a film very suitable for me, and fortunately, the film met my expectations. Well-rounded acting, polished dialogue, cinematography, filming art, scene construction, vibe creation and sound, lighting – it wasn't difficult to touch my sensitivity to beauty, sadness, eternity. It's wonderful to observe the light of stars, like seeing the past, I guess everyone has a story, a past to remember, whether bland or bitter, yet all are miraculous pieces of life that we cannot change and wouldn't want to change. Although the film focuses on the story of the two main characters, what happens around them are also memories worth cherishing, like her fleeting romance with the doctor, Ms. Tsunemi's regrettable relationship, their parents' stories, family matters, their siblings. All create a truly beautiful picture for me to admire, look at, feel, and change my own picture. And I really didn't want the film to end so quickly!
Slow and deliberate, "Hatsukoi" initially paints a somewhat melancholic and quiet scene, with frames of imagery mixed with nostalgia and sorrow. That is maturity - the yellowish film tone, scenes focusing on poetic times - late afternoon or late night, on empty highways, the night shifts of the two main characters, the curves and dim streetlights. But then surprisingly, stories interspersed with the breath of past youth, and "First Love" takes us back to the naive dreams of the 2000s, when the female lead Noguchi Yae had not yet become a divorced taxi driver with a child, when the male lead Namiki Haruimichi was still healthy and not yet a security guard at the Aurora building. Then they were nothing but young people full of dreams, they had nothing but the madness of being 15, 16 years old. Loving someone seemed like everything, confessions of love spoken like lifetime promises.
"People have a 1/6,000,000 chance to meet their soulmate, so our meeting is already a miracle."
I feel so fortunate that the film wasn't just a single movie. The way each episode explores a different story in their lives, bringing a piece and then carefully attaching them to the overall picture, takes viewers to each color patch of the grand puzzle. Therefore, not only divided between school days and adulthood, the film explores the aspects of missed opportunities, the floating skies in between. Not just tears and smiles, the story reflected before us also has quiet head tilts, wistful sighs, questions of why, "if-then" propositions full of incompleteness. A slight laugh, a bow of the head, cherry blossoms falling, Hokkaido snow melting, memories disappearing like a passing breeze.
Although the film doesn't tell a particularly gentle love story - how could it be normal when two people who love each other by destiny must miss each other because of fate, because Yae lost her memory of her first love in a car accident, because Namiki still remembered her for so many years, embracing a hopeless piece of love while watching his youth slip away, the weathering storms taking away his rebelliousness. Focusing on contrasting scenes, the silences, the way stories are suggested from tiny details that have surprising influence, along with scenes as gentle as the inherent appearance of the countryside, the bustling crowds with flashes of suffocating loneliness in Tokyo, the wonderful love of the main couple relies on fate to overcome fate itself.
Because:
"Every meeting and parting is perhaps guided by destiny. Anything that happens is an unchangeable piece in life."
Then, after missing twenty years, full of changes that had occurred, they meet again, so that the boy who once dreamed of joining the air force to be cool, to protect his loved ones, now retired, returned as a middle-aged man preparing for marriage again, could hear the voice of the former driver who once dreamed of becoming a flight attendant, among 2 million people living in Tokyo, the glamorous capital.
"Airplanes have a speed called V1, that speed divides fate. When flying below this speed, you can cancel the takeoff. But once you exceed this speed, no matter what, you must fly. Life perhaps has a few important moments like that. What do you want? Face the unpredictable wind? Or wait for favorable winds and fly with them."
While asking Tsuzura, perhaps he was asking himself. Whether he should wait for that wind to come, or step up, "cut his nails beautifully" to seize the opportunity that comes, and "don't forget to paint them cute" as little Uta said. Not only telling the past, present, future in parallel, the film tells many different stories revolving around many characters, relationships that overlap yet go alongside, like family relationships, choices that later make people wonder if they were the right ones, partings that at the time people didn't know were goodbyes, sadness people don't know why they feel. Just that, but "First Love" has told a long, complete, and truly clever story. Every action or word, emotion and choice of the characters is reasonable for them, and takes the story to different turns, but also like the image of the curve we encounter at the beginning of the film, throughout Yae's taxi rides, going along with our steps wandering with the characters, destiny leads us in circles, the starting point ultimately blends with the ending point. Perhaps that is the artistic intention of the filmmakers, to show us that even if we go in the wrong direction or get lost, even if "continuing on a path we know is wrong is hell," just keep going, and naturally, as if inevitable, as if predestined, going full circle, people who love each other will meet. Miracles, divine, God, destiny, First Love closes with love, perhaps finally. Yae becomes a flight attendant, Namiki is a pilot, Tsuzura and Uta become the best artists. She regains the memory of her youthful love, he finds her smile again, they find each other, go together, fly together with dreams thought to be gathering dust, thought to have gone forever with the journeys back and forth, the winding roads extending endlessly through the years, through Tokyo's smoke and dust. And the film also ends there. Ending at a new beginning.
Honestly, from the first introductory words, my expectations for the film soared high, I knew this would be a film very suitable for me, and fortunately, the film met my expectations. Well-rounded acting, polished dialogue, cinematography, filming art, scene construction, vibe creation and sound, lighting – it wasn't difficult to touch my sensitivity to beauty, sadness, eternity. It's wonderful to observe the light of stars, like seeing the past, I guess everyone has a story, a past to remember, whether bland or bitter, yet all are miraculous pieces of life that we cannot change and wouldn't want to change. Although the film focuses on the story of the two main characters, what happens around them are also memories worth cherishing, like her fleeting romance with the doctor, Ms. Tsunemi's regrettable relationship, their parents' stories, family matters, their siblings. All create a truly beautiful picture for me to admire, look at, feel, and change my own picture. And I really didn't want the film to end so quickly!
Was this review helpful to you?
