2010's Catch-Up: Liz and the Blue Bird

For a large portion of my adult life, I've been afraid of the future and what it held. My college graduation left my mental state in tatters and I feared change. The truth of the matter was that I was a lonely, insecure individual who was clinging onto what little I had in the form of dear friends that I worried were drifting away. I couldn't bear the thought that one day, maybe, we wouldn't all still be together, and that perhaps things would change.

I've grown quite a lot in the past year and a half, and I'm slowly beginning to realize that these changes are not only going to happen, but they need to happen. I'm in a new chapter of my life, and I can't keep clinging to people when doing so will only hold me back. It's not that we won't be friends anymore, but that we're all going separate ways, and we can't entirely be with each other at the same time. That's okay. That's life.

This is the main internal struggle of Kyoto Animation's 2018 film Liz and the Blue Bird. Directed by Naoko Yamada - a director who more than proved herself with 2016's near-perfect A Silent Voice - continues the sensitive portrayal of tough mental issues with innovative uses of film score and animation to underline theme that made her previous film so good. Though Liz and the Blue Bird doesn't quite come close to that behemoth in quality, it's still a worthy successor to her mounting legacy.

The plot revolves around friends Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki and a simple conflict; the two are best friends, but while Nozomi is a more outgoing person who is beginning to drift away from the path they were taking together, Mizore is a shy loner who considers her best friend to be everything to her. She will stay with her at whatever cost, but senses the impending drift between them, and is terrified. The two will soon graduate, and their lives seem set to go in different directions.

The story is underlined by a fable titled "Liz and the Blue Bird", which is also a music piece that their concert band is playing together. The story is about a lonely woman who befriends a blue bird who takes the form of a human girl who wants to stay by Liz's side, but does so at the loss of her wings and her freedom. Mizore and Nozomi both see the story as similar to their own friendship, which is made even more apparent by the fact that they will both be playing a dual solo together during the moment of their parting. The problem is, they are out of sync, because Mizore cannot understand why Liz lets the bird go - a sentiment that is affected by her own terror towards losing Nozomi.

Mizore and Nozomi aren't as developed or memorable as the incredible cast from A Silent Voice, but the wonderful animation and Yamada's tender direction goes a long way towards making them relatable - especially for someone like me who's been in this exact same situation. As they prepare for their solo together, they try to wrap their heads around what they want for their future and how they will cope without each other. The camerawork and animation does a great job putting us in their heads, with an incredibly beautiful score that feels like a symphony - with its own story and motifs and emotional cues - underlying all of it.

There is also the story of "Liz and the Blue Bird" itself, one that runs parallel to this one. We see their story in brief flashes with incredible storybook animation, almost a halfway point between the hand-drawn style of The Tale of Princess Kaguya and the Europe-inspired folksy aesthetic of Howl's Moving Castle, with bright, fairy tale colors suffusing every frame. It is, simply put, beautiful.

Liz and the Blue Bird is a very simple story. That's not necessarily a bad thing; some of the best animated films I've seen are very simple stories rendered into sheer poetry through animation and impeccable storytelling. Liz and the Blue Bird comes close to this level, but doesn't quite make it. For the most part, it's an immersive look into the mind of a lonely girl scared to move into the future, and refrains from the excessive expository dialogues and monologues that so much of Japanese animation is saturated with. At times it's even like a silent film, relying far more on the visuals and the music to provide its emotional cues than its dialogue. There are, however, some issues that drag it down.

Liz and the Blue Bird is a spin-off to the show Sound! Euphonium, a popular anime television series in which Mizore and Nozomi are the main characters. As someone who's never seen Sound! Euphonium, I can say that for the most part it's perfectly watchable as a standalone work, but there are just a few too many scenes where characters that are unimportant to the plot talk at length about things that don't matter. Likely, these scenes are here to please fans of the show, showing characters they already know and love interacting, and in some ways this does create a dynamic environment for the protagonists to live in and engage with, but it happens just a bit too often, at the expense of potential plot and character development. When the final act comes, the transition feels a little rocky, as if it wasn't quite done with all of the character and thematic development it needed, and if these scenes had been replaced with something else, this issue could very likely have been avoided.

But the finale is a powerful one nonetheless, with an incredible, emotional musical centerpiece that caps off the thematic arc of the film and a powerful reconciliation between Mizore and Nozomi. In the end, Liz and the Blue Bird is a unique story about friendship, and how two people who are so close and important to one another can sometimes keep each other imprisoned as well - and sometimes, the only way for both of them to be happy is to go their separate ways. This isn't necessarily a goodbye, but it's a declaration that these two people need to be able to stand on their own and follow their own paths.

For me, Liz and the Blue Bird was a powerful and relevant film despite its flaws, one that hit almost too close to home, as I'm about on the same end of the same arc. It's something I really could have used earlier in my life, but I'm still grateful that I got it now. Its a beautiful orchestral fable masquerading as a high school character drama that continues Yamada's success as an animated storyteller, and even generated some interest in the series it's a spin-off of. Overall, this is one that any fan of anime film should check out.

Check out my 2010's Catch-Up Scorecard here!