The Everyday Pen

Original title: Omohide poro poro Directed by: Isao Takahata Some movies are just have to fun to watch. Others are kind of stick with you without making a big deal about it. Only Yesterday is definitely one of those. I really liked how slow and relaxed it felt, and how it finds meaning in everyday stuff. I loved the farming scenes, the gradual color changes, the school play, the family's first experience of eating pineapple, and the small emotions of first love. One moment that stuck with me really was when the boy didn’t shake Taeko’s hand. Nothing big happened, but that quiet moment said so much. It also left me thinking about how there’s no use stressing over missed chances. There’s always another opportunity ahead if you just keep going forward. By the time it ended, I wasn’t overwhelmed or anything. I just felt calm. And honestly, that’s sometimes exactly what you want from a movie. If you enjoy quiet, reflective films that find beauty in ordinary moments, Only Yesterday is ...

For the last few days, it had been raining almost every afternoon. While I was in the library, I used to notice that most of the rain was coming from the west. The wind drived the rain in same direction, caused the rain water was seeping the western windows. But today, now, I felt something different. The rain was no longer arriving from the west. The wind was blowing from the south, and the spray of rain started touching the parts of a nearby house that had stayed dry until then. It was a small shifting, one that could easily overlooked if one was busy. And yet these, the very details I always noticed. Growing up in a village, we didn't rely on weather reports to understand changing the seasons; we learned also from the nature around us. The direction of the wind, the scent of wet soil, the clouds in the evening sky and the sounds of frogs after sunset; these were our weather forecasts. As I watched the rain today, I wondered whether this was the sign of the monsoon finally arrivi...