Standing at a crossing under the sun,Takaki Tōno stared at the high-speed train before him.It seemed that he had seen a shadowy figure of Akari Shinohara through the train window that flashes, who stood right in front with a pink umbrella.The cherry blossoms were flying indistinctly and slowly, just like the dessert after drinking tea, which tastes sweet in the bitter.
That year, Takak was ten.
Her lips are warm and soft which nearly melt his heart. Original surprise and subsequent hesitation are succeeded by a feeling of comforting peace. Just like fingers ran gently over the petals, warmth full of my heart. Neither The sound of snow falling from trees nor the whisper of the wind pass by makes the boy open his eyes. It’s the very place where his heart, spirit and all other deepest sentiment live. He believes that even if the long awful time and space, nothing could separate him from this place.
That year, Takak was thirteen.
The fury of the roar, the towering clouds of water vapor column, even the thunder fires used by gods to tear the canopy could be inferior. Takak keeps looking up at the sky, fascinated, paying no attention to the soreness of his neck and the girl by him who nearly dropped a tear. Oh ,that is a distant journey which has to be told in light years, a lonely journey that will never meet a hydrogen atom. Long enough just like thousands if nights when I’m alone, the Deer Island is as bright as the sky of city with colorful lights while glow-worm light r of phone screen in contrast. Messages without a receiver have not been seen or been heard of, like the sick letter which missed in the cold wind at the year of 13 and words that haven’t been told to the girl who is about to go in a leaving train.
That year, Takak was 17.
Standing at a crossing under the sun, Takaki Tōno stared at the high-speed train before him.It seemed that he had seen a shadowy figure of Akari Shinohara through the train window that flashes, who stood right in front with a pink umbrella.The cherry blossoms were flying indistinctly and slowly, just like the dessert after drinking tea, which tastes sweet in the bitter. All of this, with how is similar what happened at the year of 13. Not until the airflow lifted up by train disappears, he found nobody in the other side of the crossroad.
That year, Takak was 27.
That’s the story Xin Haicheng shared with us in A chain stories about distance, which tells the growth of a boy, much like our own memories hidden inside. As Xin said in the interview, we try our best to play the common life and less dramaticism. It also shows the different emotions of the earth ,and the beauty of the world. We record the real scenes with cartridges so as to make it look more realistic. Each of us once was Takak,or Akari more or less. Part of our experience become lively to be Takak and Akari on the screen.
The film has a subtitle A chain stories about distanc. Our life inevitably faces distance of time and space and the following distance of emotion. Ruthless time and space will
consistently reduce our efforts or possibility on strive to break the distance and when we get used to the distance, we are part of it. After finishing watching the film for the first time, I map the sad feelings into a coincidence,such as Takak ‘s letter taken by the wind,or the untimely train at the end. And combined with the subtitles, we can find that they are all metaphorical carrier for"distance" by Xin. Both the emotion which can only be held by thin writing paper,and meeting that cut off by passing train are paper ships drifting in the long river of time. They can temporarily floating on the surface of the water, toward the distant sea, but eventually will be dispersed in the chaos of the water.
We know the fact well, but could do nothing. We want to fight against only find all these efforts are in vain just like Florida’s endless slavery. Thouth we cannot escape from the passage of time, we can remember something. We want to tell people that they arehere, and shouting in the fact that I do here. This is the reason why the film moves us. In front of the problems that cannot be resolved, we have to make such a fantasy to keep living.
Maybe living with a speed of five cm per second, I will meet you again.
