What happens to someone who spends her days putting other people's feelings into words and has never quite managed to do the same with her own? That question drives Violet Evergarden: The Movie, a 2020 Japanese feature directed by Taichi Ishidate that blends drama, fantasy and romance over 140 minutes.
What is Violet Evergarden: The Movie about?
Violet Evergarden was raised as a child soldier and used as a weapon in a war. With the fighting over, she has built a new life as an Auto Memory Doll, a professional letter writer hired by clients who cannot find the right words themselves. A new commission comes from a boy who is terminally ill and wants letters prepared for his family. Working with him stirs up everything Violet has kept at a distance: her own experience of love and loss, the scars the war left on her, and the memory of the Major, the man whose parting words she has spent years trying to understand. The story follows her as she turns toward that past and faces the question of his death directly.
About the cast
Taichi Ishidate directs. The Japanese voice cast is listed in this order: Yui Ishikawa, Daisuke Namikawa, Takehito Koyasu, Hidenobu Kiuchi, Haruka Tomatsu, Koki Uchiyama, Aya Endo and Minori Chihara. Much of the story is carried by letters and quiet conversation, which puts the voice performances at the front of the experience.
Context & significance
Three genre labels are attached to the title, and each describes a real layer of it. The drama comes from grief, illness and the long aftermath of war. The fantasy lies in the setting, an invented world where the profession of Auto Memory Doll exists and letters hold a central place in everyday life. The romance is the thread that ties Violet to the Major. With a running time of 140 minutes it is a long feature, well beyond the usual length for an animated film, and it takes that time to let individual scenes and letters play out in full. It is a Japanese production, and letter writing is both its subject and its storytelling device: much of what the characters feel reaches the audience through what they dictate, write and read.
Watching Violet Evergarden: The Movie on Ktime
Violet Evergarden: The Movie is available to stream on K-Time, a Persian-focused service made for the Iranian diaspora with a Farsi interface. This page can be read by anyone. To play the film, log in to your K-Time account.