‘The Tunnel To Summer, The Exit Of Goodbyes’: Annecy Review

Dir/scr: Tomohisa Taguchi. Japan. 2022. 83mins.

What would you be prepared to sacrifice to gain your heart’s desire? Two misfit teenagers in small-town rural Japan form a secret alliance when they discover a tunnel with magical properties. The Urashima Tunnel bends the laws of space and time, granting the most cherished of wishes – but at a cost. This gorgeous, sparkling sci-fi romance, directed and adapted by Tomohisa Taguchi from a graphic novel by Mei Hachimoku, wears its high concept lightly. The story might be fantastic, but with its humour and relatable characters – confused kids chasing dreams, when what they actually want is right there all along – the film is satisfyingly rooted in the real world.

Gorgeous, sparkling sci-fi romance

Comparisons with Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 anime success Your Name will be inevitable: both feature high-school students brought together by a metaphysical glitch in the laws of nature; both juggle a romance that brews across a temporal divide; and both are ravishingly beautiful to look at. But The Tunnel To Summer is one of the best of the numerous films that followed Your Name, attempting to harness a similarly reality-defying realm in the service of a romantic plot.  We connect with these bruised kids who see a chance to mend the pain of the past. Winner of the Paul Grimault prize at Annecy, having previously screened at the Bucheon International Animation Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival, the film has already been released theatrically across Asia. Anime Ltd holds UK rights, and plans to release the picture in July.

There’s a palpable sexual tension between the two characters, shy boy Kaoru (Oji Suzuka) and the hostile, rebellious new girl in his class, Anzu (Marie Iitoyo). The first encounter between them is a meet-cute for the ages. On a tiny provincial railway station platform, sheltering from the pelting rain, Anzu sits, clutching a manuscript and studiously ignoring the boy who peers at her through his fringe. An announcement warns that the trains will be delayed due to a collision with a deer. Kaoru takes that as an opportunity to talk to her. He offers her his umbrella, she derisively dismisses him as a creep. But there’s a spark between them.

Overtures of friendship from the other students in the school are rebuffed by Anzu with bracing rudeness and, on one occasion, fists. But Anzu deigns to talk to Kaoru. Elements of that first meeting – the deer accident, the umbrella, Kaoru’s faltering opening gambit – recur, woven into the story; a suggestion, belatedly recognised by the couple in question, that the moment that changed their lives was not the discovery of the magic tunnel, but of each other.

Folklore surrounding the Urashima Tunnel is persistent, yet nobody has ever found it. When Kaoru first stumbles upon the entrance, after fleeing an argument with his alcoholic father, it’s almost as if the cave has been waiting for him. He finds his long dead pet budgie waiting for him, alive and well, seeding the idea that other missing loved ones might be brought back to life. But there’s a catch. Time passes differently in the shimmering, uncanny space within its walls. A few minutes spent searching in the tunnel, lured in by the promise of an elusive desire, equates to hours or even days in the real world. At the prompting of Anzu, who follows him there one day, they start to experiment and investigate the properties of the cave, in the hope that their wishes will be granted: hers is for genius as a Manga writer, while his is to bring his little sister back from the dead.

While the real-world ramifications of the tunnel are rather glossed over by the film, we’re so invested in the romance that it barely matters. And while the tunnel itself is spectacular – a shimmering subterranean avenue lined with magenta-leaved maple trees – the most striking shot is a moment of intimacy – hands tentatively clasped together for the first time, while in the background, the sky explodes with fireworks and bottled up feelings.