On March 27, Makoto Shinkai's 'The Garden of Words' hits theaters. We talk about the weather, shoes, and try to answer the question: what to do with forbidden love?

About 1,300 years ago, the Japanese word for 'love' ('koi') was written differently than it is now. Two characters were used for this word—'loneliness' and 'sorrow.' And it was believed that love is a sad feeling of a lonely person. Based on this understanding of love, I created 'The Garden of Words.'

15-year-old schoolboy Takao is a habitual truant, but only on rainy days! He loves to seclude himself in a garden gazebo and sketch shoes that he makes himself. But he is not the only one with this habit. One day at his favorite spot, he meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who only eats beer and chocolate.

The acquaintance proves fateful; day after day, the characters talk, start sharing food and secrets, and without realizing it, help each other. They wait for each rainy day like a rare holiday that will bring a long-awaited gift. Gradually, their relationship flows into a new channel, creating not the most pleasant events along the way.

The characters become an unconscious salvation for each other, that thread that leads them forward, preventing them from taking the wrong path. For Yukino, the rainy meetings are an opportunity to forget about problems after a breakup and gossip at the school where she works.

The heroine drowns herself in beer and chocolate not because of a marginal lifestyle. They simply become the only products that can restore her sense of taste. And not just the taste of food, but of life itself. Later, the girl begins to 'remember' the sensations of food when Takao shares his breakfasts with her. Thus, unconsciously, the young boy returns Yukino's forgotten feelings and becomes a key to her salvation.

For Takao, the meetings with the girl are a chance to share something intimate that he wouldn't tell anyone, like his lifelong dream of becoming a shoemaker. This is due to the randomness of these events and conversations with a person about whom you know nothing, just as they know nothing about you. And all the secrets revealed can disappear as quickly as the weather changes. If there is no storm, the characters won't meet. And what if the rain stops forever? 

'If it does rain, will you wait it out with me? — Even if the rain passes us by, I'll stay with you.'

Bad weather is an image of unity. It is as fickle as the meetings between the schoolboy and the adult woman. The garden where the characters sit becomes a figurative purgatory where social roles don't need to be played. The plot of people with a large age difference falling in love and the subsequent problems that this difference creates is not new, be it 'The Piano Teacher' by Michael Haneke or 'The Reader' by Stephen Daldry. But 'The Garden of Words' does not claim to be a pioneer. 

In the garden, Takao is not a 15-year-old schoolboy; he is just a guy without a name or past who dreams of becoming a shoemaker. The same goes for Yukino: under the rain in nature, no one forces her into the role of a teacher, which she becomes upon leaving the garden. Only after parting do the characters have to become a cog in the system's mechanism and follow social rules. 

Despite the film's action taking place in a deserted park, as if away from society, the characters, after waiting out the rain, still return to society, where each has their own role. He is a student, she is a teacher, and they cannot ignore it.

One of the features of Makoto Shinkai's works is the incredible detail of the nature surrounding the characters. Often, it says much more than the people themselves. But in the case of 'The Garden of Words,' bad weather is not a reason for sadness; on the contrary, the sun peeking through the clouds illuminates the truths that the characters want to forget. So to speak, it sheds light on the truth. 

'The Garden of Words' is one of the master's early works that became famous (after '5 Centimeters per Second'). For anyone wanting to trace the director's path and prepare for watching 'Your Name,' 'The Garden' will be an excellent starting point. The film shows almost all the aces up the creator's sleeve, which are further revealed in his subsequent works. Whether it's the depiction of landscapes or the creation of an atmosphere that can show much more than a series of events.