Scraps: "Only Yesterday"

Director: Isao Takahata

• Mellow, understated but very poignant.
• Feels very simple but with a quivering sincerity that still feels very relevant.
• Looks at urban life with a sense of apathy, but not hatred - while it faces quiet rural life with empathy, romanticism but also caution.
• Beautiful animation, naturally. The contrast of the fuzzy, vignetted watercolors in the flashbacks and the crisp, vibrant colors from the present time work wonderfully.
• The narrative maintains a sense of struggle without having a villain or antagonist that is a person, but instead it’s this ever present sense of dissatisfaction and anxieties that can’t easily be resolved.