Thelongestfilm.com – Review Call Me Chihiro. Call Me Chihiro is a film adaptation of the manga by Yasuda Hiroyuki entitled Chihiro-san. This movie just came out on Netflix on February 23, 2023. The main character in this film is played by Arimura Kasumi, who has played Yukishiro Tomoe in the films Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning and Rurouni Kenshin: The Final.
The story in this film will center on a woman called “Chihiro”. She is a former prostitute who works at a bentou-ya, or food stall. What will Chihiro’s life be like after leaving his past job? Read on in the following reviews!
Synopsis and Review Call Me Chihiro
The story begins when Chihiro (Aya) plays with a cat. Chihiro quit his job as a prostitute and now works at a bentou shop in a small town close to the beach.
In his new residence, Chihiro never hides his past work. Therefore, the people around, especially those who often buy food at Chihiro’s place of work, already know Chihiro’s past.
Chihiro’s daily life now always looks full of joy. He was always on good terms with his customers, greeting them kindly. Even though Chihiro was always talked about behind his back, it didn’t bother him.
One day, Chihiro sees a homeless grandfather being bullied by three boys. After the children left, Chihiro offered the bentou he brought to the homeless grandfather.
The homeless grandfather also accepted Chihiro’s offer cheerfully and ate it with gusto. Even after that, Chihiro offered the homeless grandfather a bath at his residence.
Chihiro always takes the time to find a homeless grandfather and give him food. Until one day, Chihiro couldn’t find the homeless grandfather.
After searching several places, Chihiro finds that the homeless grandfather has died. Then Chihiro also took the time to bury the grandfather in the middle of the night.
On a different day, Chihiro met a boy who suddenly bullied her. Then he was strict with the boy, whom he later found out was named Makoto.
When Makoto deliberately stabs his hand with a sharp object, Chihiro doesn’t scold him. But after doing that, Makoto felt guilty.
When Chihiro gives Makoto lunch in the middle of his break, Makoto apologizes for hurting Chihiro. After this incident, Makoto and Chihiro became close.
Okaji approached Chihiro
A high school girl called “Okaji”, dared to approach Chihiro. And how surprised he was when Chihiro realized that he was secretly always taking pictures of Chihiro! On a different day, feeling bad, Okaji then approached Chihiro while on the beach and talked.
Not only with Okaji, Chihiro also previously met a girl around Okaji’s age who was called “Becchan.” In fact, thanks to Chihiro, Okaji is now able to get along with Becchan, who turns out to be studying at the same place.
Now Chihiro always meets Okaji and Makoto, who occasionally meet him. Even though their ages are quite far apart, Okaji and Makoto seem close friends.
Occasionally, Chihiro also meets Tae, a woman that Chihiro respects. He is one of the owners of the bento shop where Chihiro works. But due to an incident, Tae is unable to work because his eyes are blind. Both Tae and Chihiro seem to always enjoy their time together.
An old friend from his previous job, Bajiru, meets Chihiro at his new residence. They chatted for quite a while, occasionally discussing the past and present.
Then, on the night of the summer festival, Bajiru and Chihiro were having fun playing at one of the game stands. At that time, Chihiro met again with his former boss, Utsumi. Chihiro also chatted with his former boss happily.
In the following days, Chihiro’s younger brother gives news that his mother has died. But Chihiro decided not to go to his mother’s funeral. Even so, Chihiro seemed lost in his solitude and was reluctant to do anything for several days.
Between Spreading Kindness and Empty
The emptiness in Chihiro’s life made him want to end his life several times. But his new environment makes Chihiro try to start from scratch to find his purpose in life and find people who are on the same frequency as him.
In essence, this is the story of Chihiro, who struggles to fill loneliness, emptiness, and emptiness in his life. The story of Chihiro, who struggles to move on from his dark past so he can finally start living his new life thanks to the connections of people like Tae and the others
All Characters Have Their Own Problems
This film follows the story of Chihiro’s daily life in his new place. In his journey of life in this new place, we are invited to meet several other actors. And all the actors who appear have their own problems.
As for the ending of Chihiro’s conflict, it can be said that Chihiro managed to move on and managed to find his new purpose in life. However, there is one character, Okaji, whose internal conflict seems to have no resolution.
And unfortunately, we are not invited to get to know the past of the cast and are only shown an outline. Even for the main character himself, we are not shown why Chihiro can feel lonely.
Even though a flashback of Chihiro’s past was shown, it was not described in more depth. The reason why he has no feelings for his family and others’ past is only shown at a glance.
Slow Film Flow
For a film duration of around 2 hours, this film runs at a slow pace. Because of this, some people might feel that this film is boring.
But since this film contains a slice of life theme, the storyline is very easy to follow. There’s not even too much drama and it won’t make you dizzy.
Some scenes without dialogue in this film might make you feel even more bored. But all of that is compensated by the cinematography. Especially when showing some views of the suburbs of Japan.
Beautiful scenery that is calming and really represents the image of a lonely Chihiro character. This melancholy and lonely impression is successfully obtained from the beach scene.
Meanwhile, to welcome a new life and move on from the past, it was successfully depicted from a green landscape with a bright atmosphere in the last scene of this film.
Overall, this film is actually fun to watch, even though it’s a bit boring. But there are some pretty deep messages that we can learn from this film.
One of them is not to get tired of spreading kindness to anyone. And of course it would be great if we could meet people with the same frequency. Like when Chihiro managed to find Tae who could accept himself as he is.
