Garden of Words [Blu-ray]

Short, beautiful, and charming
This movie is only 46 minutes, but this movie offers more in that short amount of time than most 90 minute films. First, the visuals are absolutely stunning. This is a true visual feat, although there is no fantasy in this film, obviously, just the simple look of the outdoors is done very tastefully and artistically.

The movie itself is a love story, its short, sweet, and enjoyable. The problem is that its really short, and although its all character development, you could use more time to care about the characters. The story is great, especially the conclusion, the ending scenes are executed perfectly, but again, its WAY too short.

I suggest you watch it before you buy it, if you love it, you'll want it in your collection.
Beautiful
I discovered this by constantly seeing people praising the gorgeous animation in it. After awhile, I finally budged and watched the movie. The praise was correct. The animation in this movie is stunning and the movie is worth watching just for this alone. But, that's not all it has. This movie has a deep, emotional, and quick story.
It's OK, but....
...I wasn't quite enamored with it. As usual, Shinkai's animation is breathtaking. Some of the shots had a palpable reality; quite breathtaking actually.

The story line, to me, felt contrived. It didn't grab me and pull me along. More importantly, I never felt empathy for the main protagonists. I'm hoping that future viewings will soften my opinion of the characters.

Concerning the soundtrack by Kashiwa Daisuke; some of the tracks in the film felt incongruent to me. The music didn't quite click with me the way Tenmon's music did with prior Shinkai works. To me, it felt like the music was written just to fill space while the film moved along. The beautifully heart breaking and melancholy music needed in this film was not there; it needed Tenmon.

Let me say that I do not regret buying this disc but my preconceived (and probably prejudiced) expectations of this film weren't quite meet. Maybe next time?

It's probably just me but I...
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