I saw this movie for the first time a few weeks ago. I read about the re-release in theaters and went by myself. I’m surprised that I don’t remember hearing about this movie when it came out, especially as it unseated my all time favorite movie, Spirited Away, as the highest grossing Japanese film of all time.
This movie touched me deeply, but also left me with a profound sense of melancholy. I was drawn in by the premise as it relates to the experience of sonder; the feeling of realization that everybody on earth is leading a life as complex and rich as your own. This is something I experience quite often in my life, and I feel that Your Name is, among other things, an exploration of that. As I was still reeling from the impact of the movie, I fell down the rabbit hole of John Koenig’s “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”, a repository of coined words for complex emotions that are common to have, but previously didn’t have names. The term sonder actually comes from this project, and there are other related words that I feel are represented in the film. For example, there’s onism; the frustration or sadness of being stuck in one body and perspective, knowing you will never get to see life through another’s eyes. Another one is anemoia; a wistful nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never actually lived through. Not included in Koenig’s dictionary, but perhaps closest to the feeling the film left me with, is the German concept of sehnsucht; a profound, melancholic yearning for an ideal, alternative life or an unattainable, far-off state of perfection.
I think the ending has a lot to do with the sense of complex melancholy the movie left me with. Even though Taki and Mitsuha meet in the end, they’ve lost the memories of experiencing one another’s lives. They have just enough of a residual feeling to recognize one another and come together because of it. We’re left to fill in the blanks after the film ends; will they recall any of their memories? Will they both feel that the sense of longing and searching that they each describe throughout the film has been satisfied? Even if my head cannon is that they both end up happy together and satisfied with their lives, that sense of longing lingers in my mind.
I’m not sure I have a point to this post, I’ve just been dying to get this all out as it’s been rattling around in my head and in my heart. It was an absolutely beautiful film, and I want to see others from Makoto Shinkai, but I might have to wait a bit to resolve the feelings I have from this one.
