5 Centimeters Per Second

5 Centimeters per Second is a story about love, time, loss and moving on. A breathtakingly movie with beautiful imagery and animation from popular anime artist and director Makoto Shinkai. The movie is divided into three chapters with each chapters coming from different point of their lives. The first chapter is during when both of them were young. The second chapter is how Takaki struggled to move on and how a girl namely Sumida, fell in love with him. The third chapter shows both Takaki and Akira in their adult lives.

This movie tells the tale of a young couple Tano Takaki and Shinohara Akira and how they grew fond of each other, how they drift apart and how sometimes, time and distance really matters. 

I stumbled upon this anime when I was searching for anime photos with sunset on it. I saw one of the screen shots of the anime and a blog reviewing the movie. I thought of watching the film and indeed it was beautiful. The film is full of symbolism. It's a heartbreaking movie that tells the realities of love. 

5 Centimeters per Second is said to be the speed of a cherry blossom's petal when it falls into the ground. The speed is use as a metaphor of how people can be sometimes towards love. 

Another beautiful symbolism in the movie is the imagery of the sky. Takaki has a recurring dream about watching the sky with Akira on his side. This scene tells us how we want something so beautiful but its too far too reach. All we can do is stare at its beauty for the longest time, trying to reach it with our hands but never really touching it. This is the love of the two main characters in their story. Their love for each other is almost perfect but distance is against them and so is time.

Time doesn't heal everything but instead it only makes the pain less. Takaki never really move on from his first love Akira. He had a previous relationship for three years but choose to break up because he knew he was still hang up with Akira. Like what he said, "Even if we were to exchange a thousand emails ... Our heart would probably not move even one centimeter closer together".

On the first chapter we see Akira running on the other side of the train rails before the train passes byleaving Takaki on the other side. This scene is repeated on the last part. This time, both of them were grown ups. They pass each other on the rail, probably recognizing each other. Both of them paused and turn around just after the train pass by. Takaki waited until the train passed to see who the lady is on the other side. However, the lady was no where to be found. Takaki looked sad and then smiled bitterly, he walked away from the rails. Just like how Akari moved on, he should move on too. He should stop living in the past and try to find a new life with which Akari is not a part of. 

Love does not always with stand against distance and time. No matter how true the love is, sometimes, it's really not meant to be.

There is so much to tell about this film. I'm afraid that I might spoil everything. There are so many scenes that I left out. This movie is deep and so real. It's sad and beautiful at the same time.

Are we really slow like the cherry blossom's petal? We tend to forget to appreciate all the love that we have right now and we don't even know when we will part.

"Our lives spread out before us ... are too large, an endless amount of time"

"At what speed must I live to be able to see you again?"

Here is the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDBH4xCE9ys&feature=fvst

You can watch the film here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPCaAJ3BogE&feature=related