ANNECY 2024: The Colors Within Review | Naoko Yamada’s Latest Feature Reaches Your Inner Child Through Music & Colour
Naoko Yamada’s ‘The Colors Within’ (Credit Gkids)
Sometimes, being at Annecy means going from one end of the city to another to catch a screening. And sometimes, even though venues are very close, it’s the screenings that take you far away. Such was the case with this year’s The Colors Within, which I discovered just after the not-so-great-yet-interesting Hazanavicius animated debut, The Most Precious of Cargoes. Because unlike the latter, which to me seems to miss the actual specificity of the medium, Naoko Yamada’s latest film fully discloses within seconds how much she is a master of her craft.
The Colors Within follows Totsuko, a high school synesthete student who perceives the world through a different palette. People, places and sounds light with wonderful and joyous colors around her, making her life a whimsical fantasy, and a beautiful mess. A student in a catholic boarding school, one day she gets – literally and metaphorically – struck by classmate XXXX, an instable kid struggling in silence with her teenage life and the inability to fulfill her grandmother’s expectations. Kimi Sakunaga, just before Kimi decides to drop out abruptly. Wanting to reunite with the mysterious and silent girl, Tostuko sets out on a journey throughout the city, where she finally finds Kimi working for a local bookshop. They reunite, and decide to form a band with Rui, an undergraduate who dreams of composing music but whose mother expects him to take over the family clinic. Together, this trio sets out on a journey of self-discovery through music, friendship and love.
As unpretentious as it is, Yamada’s characters bring tenderness and profound emotions to this simple tale of adolescence, reuniting once again with writer Reiko Yoshida, with whom she previously worked on The Silent Voice. The beauty of the animation, mixing 2D and 3D, shines through Totsuko’s synaesthesia, setting the tone of the film as early as the first sequence. From then on, music and colors will provide much needed breathing moments for the characters, who feel more often than not locked into an adult world full of expectations, rules and pressure of various kinds. Where in other of Yamada’s films, the children themselves were their own metaphorical enemies, The Colors Within revolves around the weight of expectations and how to cope with them as a teenager, stuck between childhood’s innocence and the bleakness of adulthood. Characters often seemed locked within the very frame, facing their own frighteningly plain future without the opportunity to turn back. For Kimi, Rui and Totsuko, who already feel out of place, this perspective is truly terrifying. But while Yamada doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of adolescence, each and every character in the film has layers of compassion and sympathy hidden under their toughened skin. Because every adult remembers that they once were at the very same point, clueless and lost. And from their place, they can say now with a gentle smile on their face that in the end, everything will be okay.
Naoko Yamada’s ‘The Colors Within’ (Credit Gkids)
Taking her time to build this message throughout a slow-paced and calm narrative, Yamada weaves animation, music and colors with the utmost precision. From the beautiful rehearsals of the band to the simplest transition over a peaceful coastline. Through the music created by Kimi, Totsuko and Rui themselves, the trio bring us along on their journey of self-discovery, with truly heartfelt moments and contemplative sequences. I would personally spend hours listening to the melancholic melodies of Rui’s Theremin, and then dive myself into the energy of Totsuko’s keyboards. Helmed by Kensuke Ushio for his third collaboration with Yamada, the score mirrors perfectly the turmoil of emotions the characters go through, ending beautifully with an animated concert for the ages. I defy anyone to survive the last minutes of the film without a gentle planetary humming.
Beautifully animated, The Colors Within will speak to parents and children alike, reaching the inner children of the former while appealing to the ever constant concerns of the latter. Sometimes, all you need to lighten your world is just a touch of color, which may be closer than you think.