This blog post explores why the Japanese film “Love Letter” resonates across generations. It examines how memories and loss preserved over time, along with its quiet beauty, endure as timeless love.
Introduction
“お元気ですか.”
“私は元気です.”
Back in middle school, there was a time when kids who didn’t even know the basics of Japanese would jokingly repeat “Ogenki desu ka?” in class. This line came from the final scene of director Shunji Iwai’s masterpiece film “Love Letter.” It was released in Japan in 1995 and in Korea in 1999. While Korea-Japan cultural exchange is now thriving and “simultaneous Korea-Japan releases” are commonplace, back then Japanese popular culture faced strict legal restrictions. Against this backdrop, a film by a Japanese director became a sensation and a social phenomenon: Shunji Iwai’s “Love Letter.”
Even now, long after its release, reviews continue to be posted on internet movie sites. This fact alone shows the significant cultural and emotional impact this work left on Korean audiences. Though decades have passed since its production, the visuals remain so beautiful they never feel dated. Its emotional resonance never fades; like the memory of a first love, it vividly revives in viewers’ hearts whenever it’s recalled.
For me, “Love Letter” is remembered as the first film that made me shed tears in a theater. As a young middle schooler, I was confused until the film’s midpoint by the unfamiliar Japanese names, not even realizing the female lead played two roles. “Love Letter” delivered both pure emotion and a strange shock. Gazing at Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” quietly tucked away on a bookshelf, sometimes brings back that faint yet poignant feeling I experienced in the theater back then. I want to dive deep into that feeling once more.
Narrative Summary
After attending the memorial service for her lover, Fujii Itsuki, who died in a climbing accident two years prior, Hiroko Watanabe, who lives in Kobe, stops by his house and looks at their middle school yearbook. Sending a letter to Otaru using an address she finds there, Hiroko unexpectedly receives a reply. Believing the letter came from Itsuki in heaven, Hiroko continues exchanging letters. However, the person actually writing the replies is another Fujii Itsuki—a female classmate from middle school who shared the same name as the male Itsuki.
Hiroko confides in Itsuki’s friend Akiba about the strange letter incident she’s experiencing. Akiba, who deeply loves Hiroko, sends a letter to the Itsuki in Otaru demanding she reveal her true identity. In response, the female Itsuki sends a reply enclosing documents proving her identity, asking Hiroko to stop sending letters. Overcome with sadness and confusion, Hiroko travels to Otaru with Akiba. They leave a letter apologizing for the misunderstanding caused by the shared name, concealing the fact that the male Itsuki had died. Only then does the female Itsuki begin to recall faint memories of a boy with the same name from her middle school days.
Back in Kobe, Hiroko writes again to the female Itsuki, asking her to share stories about her lover Itsuki’s middle school years. As their letter exchange resumes, the female Itsuki gradually recalls various memories from middle school—episodes that occurred because of their shared name. One day, visiting the school at Hiroko’s request to photograph the playground where the boy Itsuki used to run, the female Itsuki hears from younger students that “finding library cards with the name Fujii Itsuki written on them has become a trend.” Boy Itsuki used to pick books no one borrowed and write his name at the top of their library cards.
Later, through a teacher, Girl Itsuki learns that Boy Itsuki had died two years prior. This news shocks her deeply. It revives memories of her father, who passed away from pneumonia ten years ago. Her long-suffering cold suddenly worsens, and she ultimately loses consciousness and collapses. With heavy snow blocking even ambulances, her grandfather carried her on his back to the hospital, just as he had done for her father ten years prior. At that very moment, Hiroko climbed the mountain where her lover Itsuki had met his end and spent the night at a mountain lodge. The next morning, as Hiroko cried out Itsuki’s name toward the mountain, the female Itsuki in the hospital room slowly regained consciousness.
After being discharged, the woman Itsuki sends a letter containing her last memory with the boy Itsuki. It recounted how, not long after her father passed away, the boy Itsuki had come to her, asking her to return a book he had borrowed from the library for him. When she went to school a few days later, he had already transferred and vanished. Not long after that, some juniors came to the woman Itsuki’s house. In their hands was the book boy Itsuki had given her last: Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” Hidden on the back of its library card was a drawing of girl Itsuki’s face, drawn by boy Itsuki. The moment she discovered the drawing, she belatedly understood boy Itsuki’s feelings.
“To Ms. Hiroko Watanabe. My heart aches too much to send this letter.”
The Aesthetics of Love Letters
Shunji Iwai’s “Love Letter” is a work imbued with a very pure and clear sentiment. The film begins with Hiroko, who lost her lover Itsuki Fujii in a mountain accident, sending a letter to his middle school address and unexpectedly receiving a reply. The reply came from Itsuki Fujii, a woman who shared the same name as the boy Itsuki and had experienced many episodes with him during their school days. The process of the two women exchanging letters and reminiscing about the man who left is delicately unfolded.
The most beautiful aspect of this film lies in the moments that shine alone, never meeting each other. Though the departed one’s time on earth was brief, traces remain everywhere, and those left behind find warmth by reflecting on those traces. For instance, the dragonfly flying over the snowfield in the film is a core image symbolizing this emotional texture.
The director imbues the story with multi-layered meaning through the idea of casting the same actress in dual roles. Hiroko prepares to gradually let go of the deceased Itsuki through her letters with the female Itsuki. ‘Longing’ may seem like a force trying to hold onto a distant being, but it is actually closer to a kind of resignation, a gradual acceptance of the inevitable drifting apart. Yet, it does not signify only loss. Female Itsuki, who long remained unaware of Male Itsuki’s affection for her, slowly carves out a place for him in her heart as she revisits the past. This dual role serves as a symbolic device, revealing how the two opposing movements—letting go on one side and welcoming on the other—ultimately converge into a single flow.
The motifs of letters and drawers further emphasize the film’s structural beauty. As Hiroko closes the drawer in her heart, the female Itsuki opens a new, secret drawer from the past. The cross-cut scene where Hiroko’s shout of greeting from the mountain echoes back in the female Itsuki’s hospital room creates an almost magical, intensely emotional resonance. The setting of two people sharing the same name also varies this pattern of narrative push and pull.
Even the snow is arranged to fit this structure. The snow is both an element of beauty that envelops everything and an element of terror that took both their lives. By placing the female Itsuki back into the blizzard that killed Itsuki’s father from pneumonia and then rescuing her, the director suggests a philosophical balance: that in worldly affairs, there is no absolute loss or gain, and happiness and suffering always replace each other.
As the year draws to a close, the contemplations held within this film resonate ever more deeply.
Film Analysis
Character Analysis
As Watanabe Hiroko, unable to forget Fujii Itsuki—the man who lost his life in a winter mountain accident—begins sending letters, the film’s perspective naturally shifts from Hiroko to the memories of Itsuki the girl during her middle school years. As the film progresses, the presence of the female Itsuki gradually expands.
The fact that the male Itsuki liked the female Itsuki in his youth, and that his feelings for Hiroko stemmed from their physical resemblance, suggests a potential subtle competitive tension between Hiroko and the female Itsuki. However, by having Miho Nakayama play both characters, the director liberates them from the framework of romantic rivals and suggests a more fundamental emotional connection.
Meanwhile, Shigeru Akiba, who secretly harbors feelings for his friend’s girlfriend Hiroko, is a glass artisan. His work scenes handling furnaces and heat subtly reveal his desire to melt Hiroko’s cold, hardened heart.
Additionally, the scene where Fujii Itsuki’s grandfather refuses to sell the old house serves as a reminder of attachment to vanishing things and the value of the past.
Narrative Analysis
Though living in different spaces, two women with identical faces share memories of a deceased man, rediscovering their past first loves. Meanwhile, Hiroko experiences deep inner conflict upon learning she was chosen because she resembles the girl Itsuki once loved. The film’s narrative unfolds around the flow of letters, allowing the audience to experience a structure where multiple layers of narrative intertwine.
The director meticulously arranges a series of clues—the taxi driver’s words, a name called out by chance on the street, the girl Itsuki turning at a voice heard while cycling, the similar faces in the yearbook—to design the convergence of the two Itsukis’ memories and Hiroko’s anxiety into a single point.
Hiroko experiences profound emotional waves throughout this process, yet her feelings never escalate into hatred. Instead, at the climax, all emotions resolve, and Hiroko realizes the love she clung to was destined to be quietly buried within time. The majestic mountain, blanketed in snow, renders her infinitely small, appearing not as something to be conquered but as a mysterious presence to be embraced.
Meanwhile, the woman Itsuki belatedly understands the feelings of the boy Itsuki from the past. Through this realization, the audience substitutes the feelings of loss and regret Hiroko experiences with another form of profound emotion. However, because the man Itsuki is no longer in this world, the audience experiences a subtle emotional oscillation between sadness and joy. The film ends precisely within that fleeting moment of oscillation. The director subtly leaves the conclusion to the audience, leaving a lingering resonance.
While adopting a typical melodrama structure, the film’s unique charm lies in its refusal to present explicit expressions of love or a climactic romance between the male and female leads. Yet, the profound tenderness and tears it evokes signify the immense power of its narrative.
Analysis of Color Imagery
The opening scene of Watanabe Hiroko walking down a path entirely covered in snow evokes an exotic yet romantic atmosphere. The snow that fills the entire film simultaneously carries the contrasting meanings of life and death.
Images of Life
Snow maintains its original symbolism—purity, cleanliness—revealing the affection of life and the beauty of memory. Scenes from Itsuki’s school days show the preciousness of everyday life, as charming as a fairy tale. The incidents Itsuki endured as a boy because of his name and the quirky antics of his friends convey a cartoonish vitality, transforming into cherished memories to be recalled with gratitude later in life.
When female Itsuki visits the school and photographs the playground, the snow functions as a dynamic symbol connecting past and present. Hiroko’s proactive nature is also evident in her scene of seeking out the mountain herself on a snowy day, reflecting her desire to confirm what kind of presence she was to her lover.
Images of Death
Snow simultaneously becomes the backdrop for death and tragedy. Male Itsuki passed away in an accident while climbing on a snowy day, and his memorial service is also held in the snow. Mourners dressed in black, contrasting sharply with the snowy landscape, dramatically accentuate their restrained grief. Hiroko’s hesitation, unable to climb the mountain, emphasizes her fear and sense of loss.
Female Itsuki’s father also died of pneumonia during a heavy snowstorm. In a situation where rescue was nearly impossible, her grandfather carried her father on his back all the way to the hospital. Female Itsuki faced the same peril but fortunately survived. Thus, snow is a dual symbol simultaneously piercing life and death.
Editing Analysis
The most striking scene is the spatial cross-cutting revealed in the climax. It intercuts between Hiroko screaming “お元気ですか.” (“How are you?”) at the mountain summit and, at the exact same moment, the female Itsuki lying in her hospital bed murmuring “お元気ですか.”
By editing so that the same line is spoken by two characters in different spaces, a mysterious connection is formed, as if they are sharing an emotional communion. This scene masterfully reveals Hiroko’s pent-up sorrow erupting and her resolve to no longer be bound to her dead lover. Simultaneously, it elevates the subtle mystery permeating the entire film to its peak.
Conclusion
The lingering melancholy felt throughout the film finally dissolved into tears as the end credits rolled. Even though I had distanced myself from melodramas at some point, the pure emotional resonance of “Love Letter” seems to remain deep within my heart. Truthfully, I knew next to nothing about film, to the point of being a complete layman. Like an ordinary viewer, I simply categorized films as ‘fun’ or ‘not fun,’ barely grasping the director’s intent or the inner meanings hidden within the work. Perhaps I never even tried to grasp them in the first place.
The reason I took the Film Theory course was also because I wanted to watch the same films more ‘properly’. Watching films was undoubtedly a happy time, but when I actually tried to analyze them rather than just appreciate them, it was so difficult it made my head throb, and I even developed a certain resistance. And this happened with one of my absolute favorite films, of all things. I consulted various theoretical texts, including Gianetti’s “Understanding Film,” and searched for and read diverse online reviews, attempting my own analysis, but I still find many parts unsatisfying.
Nevertheless, as the film theory course nears its end, I hold onto a small belief that I will be able to develop a sharper perspective and conduct more sophisticated analysis than I can now. With this expectation, I conclude my analysis of the film I love, “Love Letter,” here.
