From up on Poppy Hill

Of all the titles (as far as I have watched) from Ghibli film, this movie has nearly come into the first place in my league when I first watched it at a theater. Although, when it comes to the quality of picture, it is nowhere near as good as other Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, this nostalgic kind of atmosphere that embraces the whole film is worthwhile to be seen if you are somehow fond of it. I  watched the film through my longing eye.

"From up on Poppy Hill" is set in the year 1963 in which people dreamed of a vivid image of Japan, market upside, becoming an up-coming nation overcoming the lost war. People had not only hope but a motivation, that they felt an adoration towards a better day, and that they had to move on to do something with their lives: that they even gradually started shifting their own way of living to western style. You will percept an upright flow of these spirits by watching the scene of students proudly claiming the importance of liberal in the gym. The students are eagerly doing their own study, which category varies from astronomy, amateur radio to philosophy and such, in the symbolic about-to-be-torn-down building "Quartier Latin" which the students have been protecting for. And that is just fantastic and I do not know how to express the awesomeness of this precious and valuable setting, where students fight for their assets and for freedom, which can hardly be seen nowadays.

I am not sure if that's the point that the studio focused on in the movie, but to me I felt that these historical backgrounds of the story play a more important role than the twisted main story where the boys and girls face an unacceptable fate of their own through the secret of their births. Of course the main part of the story, a forbidden love, is supposed to be more important than any other factors in the movie, but just like back street sometimes looks more attractive and brighter than main street, I found them more vivid.

I think, what compose an atmosphere of an era are moister beads of consensus of the people in the period, memorable events,  particular incidents and a fixed location of the camera that films and slices out a part of a community of the era. None of these essences is missing in the film. Having introduced a conflict over the Quartier Latin and the 1964 Tokyo olympic and having its setting in an upscale residential area Yokohama, this movie fairly penetrated to the inner heart of mine.

I think, what I like about this movie is not what people usually take into consideration when they evaluate a movie, but that is a desire or an adoration that I want to experience the atmosphere of the era in this movie.