Hello, I saw My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday on a flight to New Zealand. Absolutely loved the movie, now I am having difficulty watching other movies! In watching the movie the pacing was nice and even, keeping me interested throughout the 2 hours. But afterwards I'm even more pleased by all the symbolism and allegory the director interjects in subtle ways.
I unfortunately do not read Japanese so haven't read the book, thus I apologize if these allegories I caught seem obvious. With that, read on if you have already seen the movie...
SPOILERS AHEAD
FURTHER DOWN
LITTLE MORE
1. At the beginning of the movie Takatoshi has longish hair. Then in the middle of their 30 days Emi cuts his hair back. This seems to also mirror how before this point Takatoshi is unaware of Emi's nature, and that his eyes are quite unable to see what's in front of him. When Emi cuts his hair she is pulling back the curtain, so to speak, in that soon she will reveal everything to Takatoshi.
2. When Takatoshi and Emi see the Pomeranian, Takatoshi remarks that the doggie is perhaps afraid of being left behind. This foreshadows how Takatoshi will feel at the end of their 30 days, perhaps feeling left behind. I imagine Emi also feels the same at the end of her 30 days. Interestingly, the Takatoshi on day # 3 pumped his arms furiously, pantomiming a little dog running. Emi does the same thing towards the end of the movie, but the difference is that Emi perhaps was told of this by Takatoshi at some point. The Takatoshi on day # 3 would have no way of knowing about this maneuver, yet still does it.
3. While cutting his hair, Takatoshi tells a story of being acting in a play, and how afterwards he didn't want to take off the costume. Unfortunately as the costume was made of plastic, he got all sweaty inside. Emi also says she has taken part in acting. This parallels how Emi in many ways is acting like she is in a play (doing so out of her love for Takatoshi!) It also parallels how Takatoshi cannot keep up the acting, he gets sweaty (or teary) in the costume.
4.The most prominent allegory is meeting the right person at the wrong time. Sometimes people fall in love when they are about to graduate/move away/visiting just for the summer/just plain not ready, etc. etc. Tomorrow I Will Date with Yesterday's You takes it to another extreme in that the wrong time for Takatoshi and Emi means she is moving backwards while he is moving forward.
Would love to hear any others that I missed, I'm certainly I didn't catch it all!
Thanks for listening,
