A Silent Voice (2016)

Have you ever finished watching a film or series that impacted you so deeply that long after you have seen it you could never get it out of your mind? Maybe it was a bittersweet ending, forcing you to come to terms with the harsh reality of life or maybe the ending left a lot of room for interpretation. Whatever it was I'm sure all of us have that movie or series in which we hold to a high personal regard. It almost becomes a part of our own core identity, for me that film is Naoko Yamada’s “A Silent Voice”. A film so deeply rooted in empathy and the struggles of communication. The many messages “A Silent Voice” presents could not have been pulled off in any other medium, the way the film tackles anxiety, depression and self-hatred was something I've never seen before but it was something that felt real.

Most of the meaning is not shown through any use of dialogue and instead through the visuals. For example, our main character Shoya Ishida (voiced by Miyu Irino) cannot look at the people he isn’t close with in the eyes and to show this the background characters wear a cross over their face. This symbolizes Shoya’s self-pity and self-hatred.

Watching “A Silent Voice” for the first time felt as if the movie was only made for me, it didn’t matter that there were other people watching it around me, for that moment in time, it was all just background noise. The only thing that mattered to me was experiencing a story which said, “I get you” and “I understand you”.

The opening two minutes of the film was an almost dream-like sequence where it illustrates Shoya’s willingness to kill himself. It is conveyed in such a subtle manner with the visuals but presented in a way which is haunting yet melancholic, there are no visuals to tell us what he is thinking or why but the only thing to snap him out are the fireworks, a reoccurring motif which becomes prevalent throughout the film.

The film then takes a turn to the past set-in high school to explain what happened to both Shoya and Shouko Nishimia (voiced by Saori Havami) who is a new girl at school and through subtle facial expressions and movements in her introduction is soon found out to be deaf. This disability was seen to put a burden on the classmates from young Shoya who then started to bully Shouko by belittling and demining her. What was truly saddening about these events that took place was that all Shouko wanted was to be accepted and to make friends. No-one around attempts to prevent this situation, even the teachers, and so it only gets worse. This is another example of how real this piece of fiction is presented.

Shoya is however eventually outcasted and put to shame by everyone he knows after being exposed and lives the rest of his teenage years being bullied himself. However fast forward to the present day, Shoya goes on a path of redemption attempts to communicate and rebuild relationships with old friends and Shouko but most importantly, save Shouko from herself.