What struck me most is this fleeting scene of hope right in the middle of the movie before the dramatic finale unfold. An afternoon in the piano teacher's room, after Kenji finished his lesson. In the silence the ensued the camera hovered in a place somewhere between the teacher and the boy, as if unsure on whom to focus the lenses. Then it started to slowly pull away, almost painstakingly slowly, a fuller view of the room is unveiled. The room was rather dim, there was sunlight coming from the front porch, but it was bleary, depleted, like it used all its strength to pierce through the clounds and upon reaching the room it was dead tired. The teacher said, in a typical serene but deliberate Japanese way, "Kenji, listen to me. " Pulse. "You are talented". Pulse. "Extrodinarily so." Prolonged pulse.And here is the amazing part, all this while, from the moment the teacher uttered her first word, the light in the room started to grow, stronger and brighter, increasingly more assertive, until the whole room was light up on golden fire, and both the teacher and the boy eventually became silhouette bathed in a blaze of light. "You should go to music school". She concluded.
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