On The Movie "The Tunnel To Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes"

From the tv screen, with its damp and rain-infused, almost classical, and almost ordinary, and reminiscent of life from almost 20 years ago, much has been felt from the animated film The Tunnel of Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes, 2022. When it comes to its movement, it may be as though the viewing itself is a walk inside the Urashima Tunnel, immersing into something that cascades, an elegant caprice, and a fascinating blend to real life in its flow. From the railroad tracks, the sunflowers, the umbrellas, it was clear that this was not keen on grabbing us through the eyes, but our minds, through these repetitive imagery, what we remember, in our memories and what takes hold of us there. In a world that has evolved to become primarily cerebral, the movie does a good job at making challenges to what drives us from then and now.

Can it be so, that the movie is being true to its title of bringing us toward summer—to an exiting of goodbyes? Running, like how we do as a form of competition, and overcoming our bodies, having something that we seek to restore…it certainly is not the end-all, be-all of living, yet the idea of it is painstakingly enticing. But staying there, is something that one does not hope to be in, a place where time flows in our own terms. A place where what we know was, still is. And from the looks of it, the world has changed from the humble days of almost 20 years ago, from the perspective of stories, and what has yet to be told, and what has yet to be talked about. The prominent imagery of the mobile phone in the movie is there, and the phone makes it so that we are constantly updated, about what matters to us. It is not a secret that most of us cling to it dearly, but perhaps only because of what it does in connection to where we are going, a place that is either one of restoration, like Kaoru, or a wish, like Anzu…

It’s certain that it hasn’t been a thousand years, merely almost 20. The ways we communicate and the things we are made accountable of is rapidly being relegated towards pairs. It is most certain that the years from 2005-2018 have solidified this, but it’s also true that we are not a one track mind. Like the train track and the tunnel underneath it, are we even ready for what walking the tunnel would bring? With tears flowing near the end of the movie, it is difficult not to take that reality lightly, yet to know the body that is made to respond is not where it stops. It’s not where it begins, either. Does it take just one? Does it take two? Or does it take 8 billion and counting? The world certainly isn’t a part of it, in this story of two…right?