Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature Your Name is the most beautiful-looking movie in town—although François Ozon’s Frantz, which opens this Friday at the Landmark, will surely give Your Name a run for its money. Incidentally, both films are romantic dramas that deal with characters entering into the lives of strangers, but while Frantz is relatively realistic, Your Name is a delirious fantasy. The latter, in fact, may be too delirious for American audiences. (The distributor has released it in only a handful of theaters in Chicago.) The plot revolves around a boy and a girl swapping bodies and culminates with them falling in love. Why they swap bodies is never adequately explained—it has something to do with a magical comet that passes earth every 1,200 years—but the film follows a certain logic in developing its premise, generating a sweet tone, good-natured humor, and even some affecting, tear-jerking moments. It reminds us that a good love story, like love itself, doesn’t have to make sense in order to work.
As the story progresses, the two heroes come to help each other through their bizarre predicament, leaving helpful notes on each other’s smartphones that tell them how to respond to situations when inhabiting the other. This collaboration develops into mutual admiration and ultimately romantic fascination. About halfway into the film, Taki tries to seek out Mitsuha when he’s back in his own body, only to discover that she died three years earlier when that magical comet hit Itomori and killed one-third of the population. (Apparently Taki wasn’t just swapping bodies, but traveling through time—another fantastic detail the filmmakers don’t waste any time explaining.) The final act of Your Name follows his efforts to communicate with Mitsuha so that she can save her fellow townspeople from disaster.
