Look Back

Yes, I know... the movie just came out and it can't have possibly made me only just start loving movies.  I can get where you're coming from, being as I am a student going to an education called Vancouver Film School. It's just that no movie has ever really resonated with me. No story, no tragic end, no happy montage of two lovers in a cafe and no suspense of any fighting choreography ever quite made me feel anything. Nothing that left an impression longer than two hours after the credits come to a close, I mean. Sure, I liked La La Land. Then the crinkled bag of popcorn, half eaten and soggy from an overflow of theatre butter, goes into the bin without a sound, and I forget all about the last one hour and a half. Or... was it two?

But Look Back touched something in me like a salted finger into aching sore. "Why do you draw?" It asks this question throughout the film as we look through the eyes of an artist that might seem unconventional to most. An artist that hates to draw. An artist, that spends most of the film drawing and also complaining about how she hates it.

I hate it, too. I tell everybody I hate it. I hate the thumbnailing, I hate the designing, I hate all the thinking that comes to composition, the colors, the time, the everything. I hate to draw. But I've also drawn all my life. So, why? Why do I draw?

We begin through the eyes of Ayumu Fujino, a girl who draws manga for her school's newspaper. I think all artists can remember the times in our childhood when everyone seemed so excited for our interest in it. The days where we traced over Kakashi and Goku for our friends' binder cover. But when a total nobody recluse out of nowhere shares the space with her with their own art comes along... well, she's not special anymore. It's a feeling all too familiar. It's a feeling that's not talked about, but I know all artists have felt it. This urge to be better, to watch hundreds of youtube tutorials on how to draw an anime face, to step into a library for the first time ever just to find some morsel of art education. Even when you found yourself hating it. Even when all your friends started to drift away, and even when your parents started to ask you when you were going to give it up.

And you do give it up. Probably for a little while. Fujino did, too - and life seemed alright now that she had time to be with her friends again. But when she finally meets her competitor, a girl named Kyomoto, and discovers that she's actually a massive fan of her work... when Fujino sees the excitement in her eyes talking about her art... she picks it up again, and they start to draw together.

I want to tell you all about Look Back. I want to tell you about the plot, about their personalities, about the colors, the design, the cinematography of every single frame. I want to tell you, but I think if you're an artist, you have got to watch it for yourself. Because I'm also certain you've seen a thousand artists in movies, but they probably felt nothing like you. There's this idea that you have to love art and its process to be a true artist - like you have to enjoy every single part of it to be great and pure and true. That you have to be proud of your art without any praise.

But there are people like me who do draw and slave away like a dog on the Wacom, the XP Pen, even the iPad... that just hate the process. Fujino did, too. In fact, in the movie, she never answers why she draws when she hates it so much. What it does show is a montage of her experience with drawing, and it was with Kyomoto's smile. Kyomoto's laughter, shock, sadness, all the emotions she felt about her drawings. It can't be put into words, the kind of feeling you get when your piece touches somebody's heart. It just sounds selfish when you try.

I hate to draw. So why do I draw? Honestly, I don't know if I have the real answer yet... or maybe it's just not to be described. Because when I try to think about why I draw, I think about being in middle school drawing characters with my online friend. I think about crying under the covers about the tragic ends we've just written about our own creations, and the art we did that wrenched our tiny, twelve year old hearts. I think about struggling to draw people kissing because of the perspective of chins, and the frustration of understanding hands for the first time with my friend. With my friend. It was always with my friend and for her laughter, her shock, her sadness, all her emotions. I loved it all and craved for it.

I don't know if Look Back really made me fall in love with movies. But I've seen at least fifteen films since Look Back, and they all feel so different. That there might be someone like me behind it all, wanting to tell a story the only way they know how. Or someone that's nothing like me, and just wanted to create something - which is a beautiful thing. The main thing is that... there is somebody with a dream behind the camera. Somebody that grew up with an insatiable appetite for art and an irresistable urge to tell their story and make it happen. I want to support those people. The ones that hate to draw and don't know why they do it, and the ones that love to draw and make something happen with it.