A movie review by: Teoh Zhi Yuan
Disclaimer: Multiple spoilers up ahead. Read at your own risk.
Ever wanted to watch a movie so heart-wrenching you would be punching your chest, bawling your eyes out at the end of it? Have you ever wanted to watch an animated romance movie where the characters are so humanised and ever so full of emotion? Well, let me introduce you to the animated movie “A Silent Voice” (Lit. “The Shape of Voice”).
A Silent Voice is an animated movie directed by Naoko Yamada, a Japanese animator and director. The original manga was drawn by Yoshitoki Oima when she was 19 years old.
The cast features two main characters, Shoya Ishida, a male student with social anxiety and Shoko Nishimiya, a deaf female student. The story revolves around Shoya, once a bully of Shoko, trying to make amends and fix their once broken relationship.
This animated romance movie was rated 4.9 stars on the website “Rotten Tomatoes” with opinions from over 2500+ people in the entire world. It earned 31.6 million USD from the box office, won the Japanese Movie Critics Awards for Best Feature Film, and was nominated for the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year 2017 together with Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film.
Personally, I would give this movie a rating of 10/10. It is one of the best Japanese animated romance movies I have watched so far (apart from Your Name of course, but that is a review for another day).
Want to know the reasons? Well, let me share with you.
Character Development
One of the few main reasons making this such a good and meaningful movie would be the level of detail Yamada poured into her characters. From body posture to facial expressions, from the way they walk to the way they speak, all of this joined together to mold the image of the character in our minds.
Taking Shoya as an example. In the beginning scenes, young Shoya is introduced as an outgoing and cheerful boy based on his carefree actions. He walks while swaying side to side, a smile on his face with a confident posture.
On the other hand, when Shoya’s teenage self makes an appearance, his outgoing and cheerful demeanor changes. He walked with hunched shoulders, head facing towards the floor with frowned eyes, wearing a very depressed and unconfident look. He was scared to look anyone in the eye, secluding himself from everyone, not willingful to interact with anyone that does not matter to him. Hence, the blue X’s on everyone’s faces around him.
Notice how both scenes are taken in a front view of Shoya, creating an easily definable contrast between young Shoya and teenage Shoya. To be able to form an image of a character through a short, meager 13 second animation is no small feat, and Yamada pulled it off.
Use of Cinematography
Still using the pictures above as examples, how do you think Yamada’s work made you focus on Shoya himself rather than the people around him?
If you guessed cinematography, you are correct. Yamada uses her cinematography skills to further deepen her character’s feelings, their thoughts, to focus everyone’s attention on that particular character. Just like hypnosis right?
Take this scene for example:
What do you feel when you see this picture?
Sadness? Grief? Or is it loneliness?
How do you think Yamada made you feel this way?
No actions, no dialogues, no facial expression was shown. Just Shoko standing by herself. Well, if you guessed cinematography, you’re right on the spot.
In this scene, Yamada had taken a shot that isolates Shoko in her own world, pinning her in the spotlight of that moment. This spotlight paints the loneliness Shoko feels. Linking back to the element of “Voice”, Shoko can’t hear a single sound around her. It’s as if Shoko is trapped in her own world of loneliness and silence despite the noisy and bustling festival atmosphere around her.
This scene truly made me realize the gravity of Shoko’s feelings. From a young age, she has been bullied, left out and made fun of. All of this weighed down on a 12-year-old girl all because she was just trying to be herself, as a deaf naïve little girl.
Here’s another example:
This is a scene where Shoko was trying to take her own life. Even to her supposedly final moments, she is still trapped in her own lonely world of silence. Even with Shoya calling out for her, Shoko being Shoko, a young girl who was just deaf, couldn’t hear him and would’ve assumed she was always lonely to the very end ever since young if Shoya hadn’t saved her.
Usage of Lighting, Scenery, Background Music
From the few pictures that you have seen, observe that Yamada has been playing around with colors, even with musical colors from the beginning?
Take these 2 scenes for example. One with Shoya bullying Shoko and another being the scene where he was being bullied himself.
Notice that the color schemes are different in both scenes? For the scene where Shoya was bullying Shoko, the background lighting displayed a more vibrant and cheerful color, like orange to show that Shoya was feeling excited. All this going on while an upbeat tune was playing in the background alongside it.
His everyday life had consisted of repeated grinds. Going to school, hanging out with his everyday friends, eating, going to sleep, rinse and repeat. So, when Shoko appeared in his life, it made his life a little more interesting. Thus, the cheerful atmosphere in the scene.
On the other hand, when Shoya was the one being bullied, the background displayed a somber and sadder shade of color. Alongside it played a downbeat tune, showcasing how Shoya was feeling down or sad at that time.
Voice and Sound
Speaking of tunes, there is another strategy that Yamada used that brought out the “voice” of this movie?
Have you wondered how Shoko feels voices and sounds after mentioning the use of it so much? Well, here’s how.
Shoko feeling “sound” of fireworks through the vibrations of a cup.
In the world of Shoko where she’s deaf, she feels “voices and sounds” through vibrations instead of hearing them, and Yamada depicts that perfectly. She presented each scene together with all the small details with such meaning and symbolism just to further emphasize the element of “Voice” in this movie.
Linking the element of “voice” to the title “A Silent Voice”, I have come to realize that one of the meanings of the “silent voice” the title mentions, is Shoko herself. She’s a deaf girl who struggles to speak and pronounce proper words. But in this case, the main idea that Yamada tries to bring out would be actions and feelings that convey more than just mere words.
Just like how Shoko can’t speak proper words, she uses sign language instead, to convey her feelings and thoughts. As for Shoya, he wanted to apologize but couldn’t tell it straight to Shoko as she was deaf. Instead, he learnt how to sign in sign language, all just to convey his feelings deep inside him, to communicate with Shoko, without the use of an actual voice.
Apart from the details like background lighting, BGM, there are certain details in this movie that affected the course of the story.
Before leaving for her home from the fireworks festival, Shoko signed “Thank you for everything”, instead of “See you next time” as she usually signs. Even if most people didn’t realize it, the movie had already taken a dark turn since the start of the festival.
Turning back time a little, Shoya and Shoko were having a chat while sitting on a patch of grass waiting for the fireworks festival to begin. They were chatting about their birthdays when Shoya learnt that Shoko’s had already passed. His reply being:
But Shoko’s reply was just to smile. Even way before that, we were shown more of Shoko’s feelings, as if something bad was about to happen. All of this was pointing out a darker and more ominous plot, revealing to the viewers little by little that something was about to happen, building everyone up for the plot twist.
Character Humanization
Then we’ve come to the final checkpoint of this analytical journey. Did it feel like I’ve been talking about the characters like my friends throughout the entire biography? Like real humans?
To me, these characters feel just so … human. Even though they’re just fictional characters, they act so realistically and humanly that it hits very close to the modern-day society we know.
Shoya, being a hyperactive kid, was bored. Every day was just the same scene and grind for him. When Shoko appeared, he got a change of scenery. But Shoya being himself just didn’t have the patience and sense to try and understand her. Even though a sign language teacher was even invited by the school to teach the students how to communicate using sign language. He even led his class to pick on and bully Shoko herself.
Shoko, being the lonely little girl she was, grinned and bore with the harassment and ill-treatment.
That pained expression, the forced smile, the apologetic look, she always thought that she messed something up, always apologizing for something even though she did nothing wrong. She just wanted to make a friend, wanted someone to understand her, even if it was only one.
Here’s a thought, isn’t the way Shoya acts just like humans? Even though he himself harbored no ill-intention in harming or hurting Shoko, he just wanted to make life exciting and interesting. After all, he was just a naïve little kid. But the realistic element here is the selfishness Shoya was expressing.
A quote from Sarah Dessen, a popular American novelist stated that “But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.”
We humans are selfish creatures. Based on some real-life experiences, there has rarely been a person who approaches another who keeps to him or herself, even if that person isn’t physically disabled. Everyone keeps to themselves, their own comfort circle, their own comfort zone.
Everyone has their own selfish side to them, just like Shoya did. He wanted to get rid of that boredom he faced daily, so he found a solution to the problem. The solution being picking on Shoko with his friends.
Still touching on human selfishness, in the scenes after which Shoko and Shoya tried to end their own lives separately, their families experienced disappointment, anguish and most importantly grief.
The thing here that makes it so human is the fact that they didn’t think about the consequences that would come later if they had committed the unthinkable, just like in some real cases.
This part of selfishness is also what makes humans … human. We ourselves only care about the consequence of the action that benefits our own selves, but not others. Touching on both Shoya and Shoko trying to end their lives, they only wanted to end their own suffering and thought that the world would be a better place without them. But based on the reactions of the people around them during the aftermath, it was clearly the opposite.
These are what makes this such a meaningful and great movie to enjoy. All these elements combined enabling us to truly feel for the character, to feel the slow burn of Shoya’s and Shoko’s interactions, and to truly feel the value of “voice” to a person.
So, after reading through this piece of text worth months of writing, what do you feel? Still haven’t watched it yet? Go ahead and watch it, I guarantee it will not disappoint.