Fireworks

In a seaside town a group of boys argues about whether a firework looks round or flat from the side. That same day their classmate Nazuna wants to run away from home and asks Norimichi to come with her. When the escape fails he throws a ball he is holding and the day starts over. Then again, and again. The film is not interested in a time loop. It is interested in never choosing the right moment: at each attempt Norimichi decides differently and none of it changes what Nazuna actually wants. The reason she wants to leave does not disappear in any version. The form is animation: a summer town, the railway, the shore, and a palette that shifts with each loop. Some passages deliberately break from reality. Nobuyuki Takeuchi directed for Studio Shaft. The film is an adaptation of Shunji Iwai's 1993 television film; where Iwai's original stayed with the children's point of view, this version enlarges the fantastical side, and that change became the thing most criticised about it. Suzu Hirose voices Nazuna and Masaki Suda voices Norimichi. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese animation and summer coming-of-age stories. Who it is not for: anyone after coherence. The loop's rules are never explained, the repetition tires and the final section falls apart.