See the full list here.
Among niche-y fantasy conceits, the time-traveling body-swap romance does not strike me as one with a particularly luminous roster of credits to its name. (I’d love to hear you chime in with disagreement, though.) Not only does Shinkai embrace this conceit wholeheartedly, he infuses it with his trademark blend of melancholy and rapturous aesthetic splendor. His filmography is filled to the brim with missed connections, and a lesser filmmaker might not necessarily grok the distinction between wallowing and lingering in that pool of feeling. Your Name hits pretty much every note you’d expect and hope for in a story with this premise, and it manages to punctuate those highs with uncommon verve and intrepidity that is not only welcome but sorely needed and restorative.
Honorable Mention: Carol (d. Todd Haynes, 2015)
Back in May of 2020, I wrote, “Haynes tells this story in what seems to me a calculatedly observed way, treading the line with his camera between spying and empathetic connection. He tells a story that demonstrates how true love is as much about true recognition—truly, mutually being seen—as it is about longing.” Carol is remarkable in that it captures the messy, jumbled vortex of passion and remembrance with crystal clarity of image, sound, and performance. It’s about as perfect an example as you can get of a filmmakers who knows precisely what he’s doing making a movie about characters who have no idea what they’re doing. Even the character who does kind of know, because she’s been through it all before, can’t help being surprised being caught (being caught) in the jaws of love, and my breath was caught right alongside hers.
Categorical Reflections
Not every romantic drama does this, but one thing these two have in common is building a narrative around a final moment that is absolutely excruciating in its tension. It’s never really a question in a romance of whether two characters will make a connection; whether it lasts is the stuff of drama, whether comedic or tragic. Both Your Name and Carol could be either comedic or tragic. Shinkai and Haynes are so good at building an atmosphere of longing and discovery—and finding emotionally compelling ways to separate the characters—that it would probably be just as satisfying should the ending go either way. That’s an incredible feat. I can’t spoil how these films turn out, but I can say that they feel night-Hitchcockian in the supreme execution of suspense. ☕️
Catecinem 