Beyond the Clouds, the Promised Place 720p - (2004 Lang: English)

Makoto Shinkai creates another beautiful film

I rarely ever watch anything more than once, but this was my 3rd time watching this today, and I had even bought the DVD.. and I still think its as great as the first time I watched it. I think I feel some nostalgic connection to it somehow, I appreciate how brilliant the boys are, actually building something like that.. successfully.. while being so young. I guess I've always wanted to accomplish something like that. I also like the attention to technical detail like soldering and UNIX command lines. Even if you aren't into the story or the characters, watch it for the animation. Some of the most beautiful scenes I think I may ever see. Especially for those you who tend to like sunsets.

I can hardly think of anything I don't enjoy about it, some people have said it doesn't feel tight or whole or well put together, but I think the pacing really isn't that bad, only thing that bothers me slightly is all the fades to black that are used for scene transitions, but really I'm not sure what else would have been better, it makes it a whole lot less confusing than just cutting to scenes and having to figure out whats going on and if its a different place or time. The DVD release is decent, some good interviews (motoko shinkai seems like a real nice guy), video quality is good, audio is fine (dont know about the English voice actors, id be afraid to really watch it in English). its good.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (Japanese: 雲のむこう、約束の場所 Hepburn: Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho?, lit. "Beyond the Clouds, the Promised Place") is a 2004 Japanese anime science fiction war drama film written, directed, produced, cinematographed, edited, and storyboarded by Makoto Shinkai in his feature film debut. Set over several years in an alternate history where the Soviet Union occupies half of Japan, the film follows two childhood friends who grow apart after another friend of them disappears; as international tension rises and a mysterious tower built by the Union starts replacing matter around it with matter from other universes, they cross paths once again and realize their missing friend might be the key to save the world.

Unlike his short film Voices of a Distant Star, which was largely made by Shinkai on his own, The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a full-scale production, as reflected by the better animation quality and the longer overall length. It has been broadcast across Japan by the anime satellite television network Animax. The film was licensed for North American release by ADV Films.

After the Separation in Japan in 1974 the northern island, Hokkaidō (or Ezo, as it is called in the anime), was occupied by the "Union" (referring to the Soviet Union). Also in that same year, the Union began the construction of a strange tower on Hokkaido designed by a scientist named Ekusun Tsukinoe. The anime follows the story of three friends living in Aomori, in northern Japan: two boys, Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa, both child prodigies; and one girl, Sayuri Sawatari. In 1996, the three are in ninth grade, their last year of middle school, and they are fascinated by the Hokkaido Tower visible across the Tsugaru Strait to the north. Sayuri becomes close friends with the two boys.

The boys find a crashed Maritime Self-Defense Force drone plane and work on rebuilding the plane with the support of Mr. Okabe, their boss at a military plant. The three teenagers promise to one day fly to Hokkaido to visit the Tower. However, before they can do this, Sayuri mysteriously disappears during the summer.

Three years later, Takuya and Hiroki have stopped working on the plane, having taken different paths after the grief they suffered at Sayuri's disappearance. Takuya is working as a physicist at an Alliance scientific facility sponsored by the United States' National Security Agency, researching parallel universes alongside Ms. Maki Kasahara under the supervision of Professor Tomizawa. They know that the Hokkaido Tower, which began operating in 1996, replaces matter around it with matter from other universes, but they do not yet know why it does this for only a 2-km radius. Takuya becomes involved with the Uilta Liberation Front after he learns that Mr. Okabe is its leader; his factory workers are the other agents of the organization. Okabe signs Takuya on for an excursion to Ezo with Uilta.

Sayuri is revealed to have been hospitalized over the past three years, having developed an extreme form of narcolepsy; she has been sleeping continuously for most of the three years. Her mind is trapped in an unpopulated parallel universe, where she is all alone. Tomizawa has discovered that she is somehow connected to the Union's research into parallel universes and the Hokkaido Tower's ability to change the surrounding land into alternate possibilities, but Tomizawa keeps this information, as well as her whereabouts, secret from Takuya initially. Tomizawa is secretly working with the Uilta Liberation Front and lets Mr. Okabe know about Sayuri, while Mr. Okabe reveals that the Uilta Liberation Front plans to bomb the Hokkaido Tower to incite war against the Union, hoping that this will lead to the reunification of Japan.

The plane only seats two, so Takuya allows Hiroki to pilot the plane and fulfill their childhood promise. Hiroki manages to fly the plane across the strait to the Tower carrying Sayuri and a missile provided by the Uilta Liberation Front. When Sayuri finally awakens while the plane circles the Tower, the Tower activates and immediately begins to transform the surrounding area; the area under transformation grows to encompass much of Hokkaido. In the last few minutes of her coma, Sayuri realizes that when she awakes she will lose all her memories of her dreams of the past 3 years, and thus upon waking she weeps because, unknowingly, she lost the memory of her love for Hiroki. Flying back, Hiroki fires the missile, destroying the Tower and stopping the matter transformation. The film ends with Hiroki vowing to Sayuri that they will start their relationship anew.

This is an anime movie done by a relative newcomer to films: Makoto Shinkai, whose only previous directorial work was a half-hour short called "Voices of a Distant Star," in which he did all the animation himself on one laptop (even for Japan, a nation of workaholics, that was unheard of). It made him so famous that they gave him a full studio to work with for his next project, and when Makoto Shinkai doesn't have the constraints that a solo project would bring, look out.

The style of the film and its sci-fi and fantasy themes is equal parts steampunk and cyberpunk, with the film taking place in an alternate timeline of post-war Japan, only a few years from now. The main differences are the division between the North and South sides of Japan, and the research into parallel universes that has sprung up, resulting in the construction of a massive tower in Ezo (Hokkaido), which understandably captures the imagination and curiosity of the surrounding world.

Though the film is ostensibly a science fiction work, the plot involving a tower and alternate realities and so on plays second fiddle to the romantic drama, about three high school kids torn apart by war. The emotions blend with the fantasy elemts in a way that is handled with incredible elegance, care and sensitivity, and Makoto Shinkai's trademark poetic touch.

But what is more impressive is how the film shows that drama can be achieved through implausible situations. You see, too many directors think that in order to make a film "dramatic" and "touching," it must be about REALISTIC people in a REALISTIC setting having REALISTIC problems with REALISTIC resolutions, but Makoto Shinkai realizes a way around that, and uses a science fiction element not as a platform for action sequences, but rather as a way to achieve a kind of drama that you really couldn't get in a film that takes place in the "real world."

The film is aware that the sci-fi is playing second fiddle to the character drama, and doesn't waste any more time than it needs to trying to explain the film's bizarre sciences or justify the contrivances, rather leaving it up to the viewer to interpret and decipher what the fantasies of the film mean or symbolize. In other words, Shinkai wisely avoids the deathtrap of "Movie Science," and instead allows the audience to take things as they come and explain them ourselves.

The part about two teenagers building a plane that could get past a government-built radar system does seem a bit incredible, but this film does reflect on the incompetence of governments and how easy it is to get past them, so the required suspension of disbelief isn't really that big (I wish I found it hard to believe that a couple of teenagers could get past a bureaucratic governmental system in this day and age at all).

Also, the brief violence and "thrilling" assault on the tower are treated with perfect sincerity. The brief fight scenes are breathtaking in their realism and how they show that when someone gets punched, they get hurt. There are no legendary martial arts techniques or complex laser-rifle technology here, this film is about how people feel about each other and what they do when they are in trouble.

The ending is slightly abrupt and somewhat open-ended (although it is happy), but that is a theme in many anime. A lot is left up to the audience's interpretation and imagination, and the film only answers the questions that really matter.