One of the films that enjoyed their North American premiere at last year’s Animation is Film Festival and is now arriving in theaters is The Colors Within.
The Colors Within, coming to theaters January 24th, is the latest animated feature from director Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird) and studio Science SARU. It follows Totsuko (Sayu Suzukawa,) a student at an all-girls Catholic high school, who has a variant of synesthesia where she can see each person as having a colorful aura about them. While she doesn’t advertise her ability to others, it seems to enhance her enjoyment of her surroundings on a daily basis as she revels in the kaleidoscopic beauty of her classmates. When she happens across another girl in her class, Kimi (Akari Takaishi,) she is fascinated by her color and becomes obsessed with tracking her down when Kimi abruptly leaves school and disappears.
When Totsuko finally locates Kimi working in a music bookstore, her nervousness leads her to make up an interest in music that inadvertently pulls in Rui (Taisei Kido,) a regular at the bookstore, and ends with the three of them forming a band. As they practice in an abandoned church and learn to write their own music and play together, the three grow closer and develop the strength to face the various secrets they all hold.
The art direction on Colors Within is gorgeous, blending a charming naturalistic environment with the abstract watercolor designs that Totsuko sees around people. The animation and design is meticulous in illustrating each character, from Kimi’s typical hunched-over posture and finger twiddling, to Totsuko’s blonde rounded figure, as physically distinct from her classmates as her colorful perspective.
One of the aspects of international animation that is both exhilarating and terrifying is that, freed of the ghettoization that animation so often suffers from in the US as only fodder for young children, anything can (and usually does) happen: Main characters can die, happy stories can turn out to be post-apocalyptic nightmares, and the film can end with the planet doomed to extinction. Given that, the viewer can spend a lot of time worrying about when the quiet story of three teenagers is going to take a turn for the dramatic and terrible, and [SPOILER] it never does. Each character does have their own issues to work through, but they are largely confined to the type any teenager might relate to–difficulties with school, with family, and with their own developing emotions. The adults in the film, by and large, are as disconnected as adults tend to be from the various tribulations of adolescence, but at heart are genuinely concerned for what’s best for the kids, even if that seems to sometimes be in opposition to what the characters want.
There is a lot that’s left ambiguous in the story–some motivations are never explained, some conflicts only appear superficially resolved, and the feelings some of the characters have for each other, while deep, are never fully explored. Director Yamada has said that the film grew out of her desire to work on something where color was expressed by sound, and characters could express themselves without words. A story about the moment in time where children are just starting to have feelings that they can’t manage, and right before they are capable of putting a name to them. There’s a lot that’s not sharply delineated in this pretty, slice-of-life tale. Still, it’s a sweet look at a time when three kids came together to produce music that brought them a measure of clarity before the rest of their lives intervened, taking them to destinies as abstract and unknown as Totsuko’s colorful visions.
The Colors Within is presented by GKIDS. Rated PG. Running time: 100 min. North American theatrical release date: January 24, 2025.