Nostalgic without being sentimental, and winsome but not wincingly so, director Isao Takahata’s gentle film Only Yesterday is a work of great beauty. The film centers on Taeko, a 27 year-old unmarried office worker from Tokyo who is spending her holiday working on a farm. Depictions of her visit to the countryside are intertwined with reminiscences of her childhood. These personal recollections paint a moving portrait of the inconsequentiality of adulthood and the monumentality of youth.

Viewers come to see how this woman, Taeko, became the person she is, with all her faults and virtues. Anyone looking back on their own childhood will be able to identify with some of these same events and will be profoundly touched by the experiences shown. Under Takahata’s direction, the scenes of Taeko's fairly ordinary childhood with few, if any, extreme or exaggerated events, are wonderfully affecting.
 

As with many Studio Ghibli films Only Yesterday combines visually stunning images of poignant beauty with multiple story lines that offer commentary about current day Japan.  The subtexts of saving organic farming communities and the role of women in modern society are as important a story as Taeko’s personal journey.  
 

(Japan, 1991) / In Japanese with English subtitles. / Ages 14+ / 118 minutes