Tunnel to Summer

By Andrew Osmond.

In the film The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes (which has just won a prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival), a modern Japanese boy and girl are caught up in a new version of one of Japan’s oldest stories. It’s a kind of time travel story; it also asks what you’d willingly give up for your heart’s desire. It’s told in a way that’s direct and focused. The characters are school-aged, but the film doesn’t waste time on hijinks, love triangles or side characters. It’s a film built round a strong mystery (based on a novel that’s already available in English), and a boy and a girl who are compelled to investigate, even though that could be very, very dangerous.

The mystery is a cave, which conceals a glowing tunnel that might go on forever. Time flows differently in the tunnel; a few moments inside might be the equivalent of days or weeks in the outside world. There are legends about this cave, that call it the “Urashima Tunnel.” If you’ve grown up with Japanese folklore, that name sounds the same kind of alarm bells that “Troll Bridge” would, or “Snow White’s apple.”

It refers to the story of Urashima Taro. He was a fisherman who had the chance to go under the sea and enter a wonderful magic world, where he stayed for a few glorious days. But there was a terrible price. When Taro returned to our world, he found that hundreds of years had passed. Everyone he had known was dead, leaving him alone, a living ghost, a man out of time. It’s a story that’s underpinned anime in the past. It’s the inspiration for the story of Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop, as explained here. It was also acknowledged by Hideaki Anno as an influence on Gunbuster, and it was brilliantly reworked by Mamoru Oshii in his classic early film, Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer.

The boy and girl in The Tunnel to Summer are well aware of what the Urashima Tunnel might be, and what entering it could cost them. Still, they can’t stay away from it. The boy is called Kaoru, living in a rural, coastal area of Japan. The loudspeaker at his tiny station regularly announces that a train is delayed because there was a deer on the line. He’s not an obvious oddball, but he almost never smiles. One rainy day, he meets a strange girl at the station and he offers her his umbrella. She’s prickly and defensive, but opens up slightly when he accepts her as she is.

She’s called Anzu, and she turns out to be a transfer student from Tokyo who’s joining Kaoru’s school. She’s very close-mouthed about her background. When it comes to fitting in…. Well, she punches a girl student to the ground on her first day, and the scene is not played for laughs. But she and Kaoru both find the Urashima Tunnel in their neighbourhood, hidden in some dense woods, and the two students form an alliance. The tunnel is treacherous, stealing their time away. But it also offers gifts to those who brave its depths, things that were supposed to be lost forever.

You might find pages of precious drawings that were destroyed, or maybe a shoe which belonged to a long-dead child. Go in deep enough, and what else might you find? Both Kaoru and Anzu have their own reasons for being drawn to the tunnel. Moreover, they’re young and alienated enough to not care much about losing the present. Besides, they have each other, and while they may not admit it, that’s becoming important to them. If the tunnel swallows them both up together, then so be it…

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As mentioned earlier, Tunnel to Summer is a focused film. You could call it terse and stripped-down, but in an entirely positive way. That’s not the same as the film rushing through the story. One of the best things about it is how it takes time to build scenes, without fast cuts or an overbearing style. The first encounter between Kaoru and Anzu at the beginning of the film is absorbing because of how little it needs; just the station platform, the sea in the background, and the two softly-spoken teens pacing round their boundaries. It’s so simple, and also so distinctive.

There are analogies with other anime, if you look for them. In particular, some later developments in the film have some parallels in Shinkai anime (mobile phones figure heavily). One of the sweetest scenes, where Kaoru humorously re-enacts his first meeting with Anzu, seems directly inspired by a scene in Hayao Miyazaki’s series Future Boy Conan (episode 8, if you want to check it out). The idea of a cave where time is distorted was used in the acclaimed live-action German series Dark, on Netflix. Some older readers might fondly remember the old American children’s “gamebook,” The Cave of Time.

In fact, the cave in Tunnel to Summer is visualised very distinctively. It’s not some dark slimy cavern. Rather it’s a brilliantly-lit space where you walk through an endless avenue of trees with gleaming red leaves, while the shallow water at your feet is covered in equally radiant blossom. The space seems clearly inspired by spring blossom viewing spaces in Japan, such as those pictured here and here. As for the flooded floor, it might have taken inspiration from the popular “teamLab” exhibition in Tokyo.

Andrew Osmond is the author of 100 Animated Feature Films. The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes is coming to UK cinemas in July.