The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Original Title: 雲のむこう、約束の場所
Romanized: Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho
Literal: Beyond The Clouds, The Promised Place

Plot Synopsis

In an alternate timeline, Japan was divided after World War II, with the northernmost island of Hokkaido being annexed. Toward the end of the 20th century, a giant tower was constructed on the northern island, and while its purpose remains a mystery, tensions between North and South grow. In this environment, three high schoolers--two childhood friends working on a home-built plane to explore the mystery of the tower, and a girl that both of them fall in love with--make a promise. But time moves on and things change, and the project is left unfinished as each of the friends follows a different path in life and the girl falls victim to a mysterious illness. When a series of inexplicable events bring the destinies of the three together again, there may be something deeper at stake than love, lost youth, and that fateful project to build an airplane.

Quick Review

Rating: 5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-09-27

Vividly realized and astonishingly beautiful, The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a worthy sophomore effort and first full-length feature for independent anime creator Makoto Shinkai. A tight, focused work of art, it will not be to every viewer's taste, but it is difficult to find fault with as a visual and emotional feast. It is the sort of film that one runs out of synonyms for beautiful trying to describe. It captures a slightly altered present that is simultaneously so concrete and so surreally lovely it is hard to take your eyes off of it. The story and character development, while more anime-standard and at times a bit abstract, are sufficient to carry the work, but the all-important ending is deeply satisfying. More important to the film, however, is a melancholy yet pervasively romantic emotional knot that is its heart and entire purpose. Interwoven with gorgeous scenery and symbolic imagery, several moments so stunning they will make your spine tingle, and a reserved musical score, the film is nearly perfect in every technical aspect--its only weakness is the Japanese acting, which is a little stiff in one of the three primaries (though Yuka Nanri's Sayuri is endearing).

The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a reserved, carefully crafted work of art that is so focused it won't appeal to all viewers, but if you appreciate understated romance or animation as an art form you simply must see it.

US DVD Review

ADV's impressive DVD features Dolby 5.1 audio in both Japanese and English, an accurate subtitle track, and gorgeous anamorphic widescreen video--crisp, rich, and as pristine as the film deserves. Extras include interviews with the Japanese cast and director and the original Japanese trailer. It comes in a very pretty package, too.

Content Guide

Although there are moments of moderately harsh violence, they are sparse and brief; ADV appropriately called it PG-TV, which I would say translates into a 10-up, although a couple of violent bits might push it to 13-up depending on your standards.

Violence: 2 - The violence is sparse, but harsh and unsparing when it does occur.

Nudity: 0 - Nothing.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Although the theme is introspective and mature, the romance is of the purest sort.

Language: 1 - Little of note in the subtitles.

Notes and Trivia

There is a manga adaptation by Mizu Sahara, but it is based on the movie, not vice versa.

Note that, as with Shinkai's other works, the title has both an English and Japanese version, which are both poetic but somewhat different. This is something like Ghost in the Shell and a few other films with dual-language alternate titles.

Availability

Available in the US from ADV Films on bilingual DVD. The DVD is also available in a two-pack along with Voices of a Distant Star as "The Shinkai Collection"; this version also includes the soundtrack of Voices on a separate CD and a fancy booklet with artwork and interviews.

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