Directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, Yasuhiro Takemoto
Running time 164 minutes
The film, 'The Disappearance of Haurhi Suzumiya' by directors Tatsuya Ishihara and Yasuhiro Takemoto is a follow on from the anime series 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya'. The story takes place from December 16th and follows the main character, Kyon. Without getting to into the complex story line for the purposes of this, I'll focus more on the subtleties and aesthetics of this particular animated film.
The first thing I want to mention is the way the directors captured Winter, not only as a seasonal change that alters the aesthetic of the surroundings but how the characters react to it, and how the season changes the actions of characters. The reason I want to address something like this to start is to discuss a different aspect of an animation, other than cover the same topics for every piece I look at. The opening to the film shows Kyon waking up in a dimly lit room, wrapped in a duvet. As his sister enters the room and tugs the sheet off him he follows it intentionally and rolls himself back up in it. On its own it's quite a humorous scene, but I also think that this reaction and follow up allows you mentally to put yourself in Kyon's shoes and feel the cold in the room. Everyone can relate to waking up in winter and feeling the cold as soon as you remove the duvet, I thought this interaction was a nice introduction to the scene and a good way to bring the audience straight into the environment the story will be taking place in. The scene ends with Kyon looking up towards the partially exposed window, and seeing the frosted glass outside, again, drawing the audiences attention to the setting and padding out the world with detail. Overall, I enjoyed the opening sequence because of this exchange and the way it was shot from above the room, giving you a full view of his sister pulling the duvet off of him and then him rolling onto the floor.
Visually, the animation has a very fluid style, this is also complemented by the plentiful slow-motion shots. The story and characters are also quite solid, and there is a good range of characters who speak, act and exist with very different tones, giving them unique personalities. This allows for scenes and tone of scenes to be very apparent to the audience, dark themes run throughout such as characters breaking down and having emotional struggles, which could be quite tough for the viewer to watch due to the intensity. Scenes such as this are intensified when shown from a first person perspective and sequences like the one mentioned are more personal. At the same time as this, however, there are a number of equally positive scenes, allowing a good range of emotions to be conveyed to and from the audience. Humor is also quite abundant throughout The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya which serve as personality traits to characters, allowing the audience to identify with them and realise the nature of certain characters despite never seeing the series before and being thrown into the heart of an ongoing story.
The story itself is told from the perspective of Kyon to the point where he spends a lot of the film narrating it, as a voice over. This gives the animation and a unique perspective, it also makes sure that the audience is following the story correctly and that they feel more involved due to the main character sharing his thoughts throughout.
Also in the film, is a range of different settings. You never feel like you've been stuck in one location for too long. To add to that, the environments are very appealing to the eye and contain large amounts of detail if you took the time to observe them during the film. To make sure the environments are shown off effectively, a large number of wide angle shots are used during the film, especially when characters are conversing in one place, a wide angle shot is used to allow the audience to take in the environment whilst the conversation between characters is taking place.
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| The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya |
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