///shower me with gifts///

i need the following films in my hands. asap.

video one: the japanese trailer for 'spirited away,' there's also an english version.. but i think i'd prefer the former. watching videos in foreign languages is much like watching silent movies [which i'm becoming more and more interested in by the day it seems], you concentrate more on the visuals. a moving, vibrant piece.

video two: a filipino film by the name of 'himala' ['miracle'] that recently won the award for best asia-pacific film of all time. i've not yet seen it, but i can barely wait till i do. it's actually a film from the early eighties, based on a true story.

video three: tekkon kinkreet, another japanese visual treat [i didn't mean to rhyme, no]. so much detail in the animation, eye candy indeed. i bought the book for a lucky friend of mine a while back [which i not-so-secretly wish i had kept for myself]. but being such a generous, giving member of society.. here i am, tekkon kinkreet-less.

video four: tony takitani is a film based on a short story of haruki murakami's which i've already read. i wasn't even aware they had made a film adaptation! it has a most beautiful score by ryuichi sakamoto that helps tell the story without me needing to know what they're saying. the story itself fills me with passion and, at the same time, kills me. just a little, and then a lot..

tony takitani loved to draw, and he spent hours each day shut up in his room, doing just that. he especially loved to draw pictures of machines. keeping his pencil point needle-sharp, he would produce clear, accurate drawings of bicycles, radios, engines and such down to the tiniest details. if he drew a flower, he would capture every vein in every leaf.

...

while the young people around him were anguishing over the paths they should follow in life, he went on doing his precise mechanical drawings without a thought for anything else.

...

twenty-two years old, she was a quiet girl who wore a gentle smile the whole time she was in his office. her features were pleasant enough, objectively speaking, she was no great beauty. still, there was something about her that gave tony takitani's heart a violent punch.

...

there was something so wonderful about the way this girl dressed herself that made a deep impression on him: indeed, one could even say it moved him. there were plenty of women around who dressed smartly, and plenty more who dressed to impress, but this girl was different. totally different. she wore her clothing with such utter naturalness and grace that she could have been a bird that wrapped itself in a special wind as it made ready to fly off to another world. he had never seen a woman who wore her clothes with such apparent joy. and the clothes themselves looked as if, in being draped on her body, they had won a new life for themselves.

...

though fifteen years apart in age, they had much in common to talk about, almost strangely so.