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| Sawajiri Erika in Closed Note |
I finally got around to watching the 2007 Erika Sawajiri movie Closed Note, a film that I’d actually tried to watch three times before, but the beginning of it seemed so typical of a by-the-numbers romance that I always lost interest and saved it for another time! Upon seeing it again in my folder, it occurred to me that I still didn’t have any real idea what the movie was even ABOUT, so I put the movie in, this time determined to watch at LEAST the first hour of it- and what a pleasant movie it turned out to be!
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| Takeuchi Yuko as Ibuki-Sensei |
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| Sawajiri Erika as Kae |
Closed Note is the sweet and gently-paced story of a young musical student named Kae (played by Sawajiri) who’s feeling unsure about her own life and loves, who finds the strength and courage she needs to move ahead in the pages of a diary left by her flat’s former tenant, a woman named Ibuki (played by Takeuchi Yuko) keeping a journal as she begins teaching a class of 4th graders for the first time. The film intercuts between Ibuki’s life and Kae’s days as she goes through the chapters of the book, each day growing stronger in her heart as she tries to live life like her.
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| Nagasaku Hiromi and Sawajiri Erika |
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| Sawajiri Erika with Iseya Yusuke |
Along the way we are introduced to all the quirky characters in Kae’s life as a budding concert mandolinist, including the curvy Saeko as Kae’s friend, the always sassy Nagasaku Hiromi as Kae’s co-worker at a calligraphy shoppe, Iseya Yusuke as Ishitobi, the mysterious artist/romantic interest who comes into Kae’s life when he drops in inquiring about pens, and even Itaya Yuka as (what else) the foil for Kae’s affections towards Ishitobi! This movie certainly got out the all-star ensemble cast!
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| Itaya Yuka as Hoshi |
A melancholy movie with beautiful, atmospheric backdrops and a slow paced rhythm to it that really soothes the viewer’s soul, I almost had a heart attack when the disc froze towards the end because of a glitch on the DVD, and right in the middle of the film’s swelling climactic speech, too! GADS!!! Thankfully the film resumed normal playing once I “nudged” the cursor a bit…Surprises like this I can do without! LOL
Beautiful, Melancholy Imagery:
