Takahata Isao’s animated artistry in Only Yesterday (1991) comes to life in Hakota Yuko’s delicate story of a woman’s mnemonic journey. Trapped in her anemic career and love relationship, a 30-year-old TV commercial director returns to her countryside home in the company of a free-spirited girlfriend. In a bittersweet reunion with an alienated family, her childhood memories of freedom and yearnings creep in the dreamlike blue hour, transcending into a lyricism of self-realization – at once whimsical, agonizing and yet hopeful.
