Finally watched Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice)
I’d been a bit scared to watch it because I heard it got really emotional, and those are movies I tend to only watch once. I’d been dealing with random anxieties in my own life at the moment, but wanted to stay in and caved to the temptation of watching it. Below is a little review with spoilers, so if you don’t skip the rest of the post if you haven’t watched it!!
Trigger warning: this movie deals with serious issues such as suicide, anxiety, bullying, and death.
**disclaimer: this review is my opinion. Its ok to disagree with it, and to think i’m wrong, or what not. I ask that you take it as a grain of salt.
I’ll start off by saying that the set up of the movie was not what I’d expected. It opened with the elementary years of our main character Ishida Shoya, and his experience meeting, and later bullying Nishimiya Shoko. Though the fictionalization of the story was pretty obvious (teachers not punishing Shoyo for disrupting the class, etc), the elements of bullying and victimization were reflective of potential real life experiences.
I think the transitions between scenes were a bit difficult to follow as I was not sure whether something was dreamt by a character ( i.e, Ishida meeting Nishimiya again after so many years.) The movie was able to recover from these strange transitions with great dialogue though.
Besides its cinematic features, this film surprised me with how it portrayed teenage life and growing up. Not only does this film discuss rekindling friendship, making amends for past conflict, and growing up, but it also discusses serious topics such as suicide, anxiety, and guilt. Though the movie was frustrating to watch because of how cruel Ueno was to Nishimiya, I think it provided a realistic relationship between two different people.
What I really would like to discuss is the portrayal of anxiety and social anxiety throughout the film. It was not completely obvious at the beginning of the film, but Ishida suffers from social anxiety. Most likely, the anxiety developed as a result of his fall out with elementary school friends. Following the fall out, his past classmates ostracized him by spreading rumors about him, blaming him for Nishimiya’s transfer. Ishida’s coping mechanism was ignoring everyone, never looking up, and accepting his isolation. As the movie progresses, we see various characters make breakthroughs at befriending him starting with Nagatsuka.
Like I’d said in the previous paragraph, Ishida’s social anxiety is not completely obvious. He he copes by treating everyone else as just a space holder. However, the bridge scene is the first clear moment where Ishida’s anxiety comes out. With his past being revealed, he crumples to the floor unable to stand. As everyone attempts to defend themselves or him, he speaks the first thing on his mind without thinking of the consequences. He succumbs to anxiety. All these moments were not completely obvious moments of social anxiety to me when i first watched the movie. I didn’t realize it until I watched the final scene.
In the last few scenes, we see Ishida practicing how he’ll introduce himself at school. This occurs multiple times throughout the film, and this is a habit those suffering from social anxiety often have. He arrives to school, and is suddenly overwhelmed by it all, the crowds, the sounds, the people. He crumbles again, telling Nishimiya how he cannot look people in the eye, and about the fear he has in being surrounded by all those people. Nishinmiya helps him get through this. She guides him to his class, but immediately falls into a frenzy, a panic attack. Nagatsuka goes to his side, helping him calm down.
The final scene is where we see a breakthrough for Ishida. Having asked his friends to walk around the festival with him, he has a support system for dealing with his social anxiety. As he stands in the middle of the festival, surrounded by both his peers and family, he begins to see those around him as not just space holders and judgement, but as people.
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