Fire­works

Arriv­ing one year on from the UK release of the crossover hit Your Name, Fire­works con­tin­ues 2017’s exper­i­men­ta­tion with month­ly the­atri­cal ani­mé releas­es in fit­ting fash­ion – with a high-con­cept, high-emo­tion melo­dra­ma that attempts to repli­cate Mako­to Shinkai’s win­ning for­mu­la. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, though, Fire­works quick­ly fiz­zles out.

It’s sum­mer in the sea­side town of Moshi­mo, and Norim­ichi Shi­ma­da whiles away his time skate­board­ing and cycling around with his chums, play­ing video games and debat­ing a top­ic of cru­cial impor­tance: when fire­works explode, what shape do they form? And does that shape change, depend­ing on the spectator’s point of view? Fire­works – or, to give it its full Japan­ese title, Fire­works, Should We See it from the Side or the Bot­tom? – teas­es a sur­pris­ing amount of mileage out of this sim­ple, and some would say rather dull, ques­tion. It’s impor­tant, you see, because Moshimo’s fire­works fes­ti­val is com­ing up. But Norim­ichi has a new dis­trac­tion: a beguil­ing girl at school called Nazu­na Oikawa.

An abstract open­ing mon­tage of yearn­ing sets the tone: bod­ies sus­pend­ed in water, whis­pers of regret, pre­emp­tive nos­tal­gia for a youth­ful idyll that’s slip­ping away minute by minute. Nazu­na, break­ing the hal­lowed divi­sion between crush object and sub­ject, reach­es out to Norim­ichi, invit­ing him into a world of adven­ture and romance, encour­ag­ing him to escape the dai­ly grind and run away with her to the big city, but hes­i­ta­tion and devi­a­tion always seem to pre­vent our two lovers from elop­ing togeth­er. Luck­i­ly, Fire­works has rep­e­ti­tion on its side. A handy lit­tle bauble finds its way into Norimichi’s hand, one that, when flung in des­per­a­tion, grants the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rewind time and cor­rect a mis­take, bring­ing us one step clos­er to a hap­py ending.

Like Your Name, Fire­works hinges on moments of height­ened emo­tion, the very pace of the film slow­ing to a crawl to accen­tu­ate a cer­tain mood. How­ev­er, where Your Name is whim­si­cal, wist­ful and wise, Fire­works is a messy mis­fire. Visu­al­ly, the film is an awk­ward col­li­sion of styles, lean­ing into the inher­ent ten­sions between CGI and tra­di­tion­al hand-drawn ani­ma­tion. Sketchy char­ac­ter designs exist with­in glossy, pho­to­re­al­is­tic land­scapes that burst into spec­tac­u­lar mon­tages sat­u­rat­ed with spe­cial light­ing effects. It’s cer­tain­ly a strik­ing look, but ulti­mate­ly it’s a gar­ish and fussy aes­thet­ic; all flash and no substance.

The same can be said for the entire film. From top to bot­tom, Fire­works is far too com­pli­cat­ed, and frus­trat­ing­ly trite. There’s also an unseem­ly the­mat­ic through line, a puerile obses­sion with women’s bod­ies that begins ear­ly, with Norim­ichi and his gang ogling a teacher’s breasts (“Look at ​’em sway!”), before the more sub­tly unset­tling depic­tion of Nazu­na, the demure object of desire who, at one point, changes out of a for­mal kimono into a pris­tine white dress. As the film’s gaze lingers on her bare legs and blushed cheeks, she coy­ly asks her suit­or ​“What do you think? Do I look 16?”

In the year since Your Name, it has been a treat to see ani­mé fea­tures reg­u­lar­ly hit­ting cin­e­ma screens in the UK. But it has also been some­thing of a real­i­ty check. A hand­ful of these releas­es have been ter­rif­ic, with the best, such as A Silent Voice and The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl, expand­ing the ani­mé land­scape with new per­spec­tives and points of view. Some – the shal­low, ret­ro­grade Fire­works includ­ed – would be bet­ter off left to the straight-to-DVD market.