A believing heart is your magic.
Liz and the Blue Bird (リズと青い鳥), Kyoto Animation’s new film, is generally translated into Chinese as 莉兹与青鸟. I really like this translation: it places the blue bird and Liz on equal footing. The Japanese title, though, always seems a little off-center to me, and that feeling grows stronger when it is written out in kana. But after watching the whole film and listening carefully to the soundtrack, I began to understand what the title meant.
We generally think of the blue bird as a symbol of happiness. Seen this way, Liz’s decision amounts to rejecting her own happiness. As the blue bird grieves over their parting, Liz must surely be suffering too, reluctant to let her go. But Liz has no right to decide whether the blue bird stays or leaves. In this story, the blue bird’s thoughts and choices are central: they determine which way the story goes. The title therefore foregrounds the blue bird’s agency.
Yet the screenwriter, director, and even the people making the music do not want us to find the heart of the story quite so quickly. Plenty of others have presumably discussed its other aspects, so I will concentrate on the score here, with some attention to the images and story.
The film’s opening eight minutes are breathtaking.
The film’s opening eight minutes are breathtaking. “物語の始まり” (“The Beginning of the Story”) is adapted from “愛ゆえの決断” (“A Decision Born of Love”), the third movement of Akito Matsuda’s Liz and the Blue Bird suite. Compared with the texture of the suite, the opening cue has a fuller structure. The original’s intense sorrow at parting is softened; together with the images, the music gives us a stronger sense of the quiet and stability of life in the forest. Although this cue establishes the atmosphere of the storybook tale rather than the main story, the choice to use it sets the tone for the entire film. If I had to find one word for that tone: bright.
The misunderstanding begins at the school entrance.
As students come through the school gates, the background music, played on prepared piano, establishes the early-morning atmosphere. Kensuke Ushio’s approach to scoring is markedly different from Matsuda’s: he prefers to express things through timbre rather than melody. I do not know much about prepared piano myself. The characters’ footsteps, combined with the timbre of the prepared piano, form a musical pattern that is not particularly complex, but is full of striking touches. It is hard to pick out a complete melody here. You could say this represents Mizore’s world before she meets Nozomi: there are occasional moments of pleasure, but in the end everything settles back into quiet. The intermittent music also reveals the flutter of Mizore’s heart, her anticipation of seeing Nozomi.
As Nozomi approaches Mizore, a melody played on piano enters, followed immediately by the marimba. This emphasizes what Nozomi means in Mizore’s world, while the lively melody itself misleads us into thinking that the blue bird represents Nozomi. At the very moment Mizore rises to follow Nozomi, a distinctive single-note line in the upper register joins the melody. This is Mizore’s part: not exactly monotonous, but offering little variety. Ushio quietly switches instruments here—from piano to marimba—yet there is little sense of sharply separated sounds, as though everything were emerging naturally.
As Nozomi says “ホラ” (“Come on”) to Mizore, the accompaniment quickly fades, leaving only single notes from the marimba and piano. The idea of “a world with only you and me” is now fully established. The marimba, rhythmically simple but strongly melodic, can be understood as Nozomi, who seems so lively and at ease. The other single-note part varies little in pitch, but its rhythm is distinctive—just like Mizore.
The two arrive at the school building and change their shoes. The scene cuts to a shot without people, two blue birds flying across it, and the piano quickly falls silent. As the girls walk through the building, piano and strings enter in turn, enriching the music’s colors once again to convey the way they move toward their destination. By this point, most viewers will have the mistaken impression that the music will keep growing richer until it reaches an emotional peak.
But when Mizore looks up on the stairs and sees Nozomi ahead of her, the marimba stops, leaving only the strings. An overexposed transition takes us into Mizore’s memory. The melody here is weighty and slow; the occasional distinctive percussion sounds seem small and lovely amid the rich chords. This is the most beautiful place in Mizore’s heart: close behind Nozomi, admiring the sight of her from behind.
When the images return to the present, the other percussion instruments enter one after another. The emotion gradually builds—only to be cut short by one final note from the prepared piano. At the same time, after “disjoint” appears, the film cuts to a closer shot and returns to quiet.
Beyond its perfect use of timbre, what makes “wind,glass,bluebird” outstanding is its perfect fit with the images—even with the sounds within them. Footsteps, soles scuffing, shoes landing, doors opening: all are treated as distinctive instruments within the piece (a great many even fall right on the beat).1 The music’s progression perfectly matches the characters’ movements and states of mind. These opening minutes alone are enough for Liz and the Blue Bird to take firm hold of the viewer’s senses.
The duet in the opening is also worth attending to. The characters’ behavior before and after it, as well as the sound of their playing, is used to convey subtle changes in their relationship.
The duet comes after Mizore has slowly moved closer to Nozomi. Nozomi’s sudden rise to her feet clearly startles Mizore. Mizore freezes for a moment but does not object, because this is all “what Nozomi wants.” In this performance, the flute is steady, whereas the oboe’s tone not only lacks body but even has an intonation problem—it is flat. Mizore is simply following Nozomi through the piece, expressing almost none of her own feelings. She is playing solely because “Nozomi wants to play together.” You can even hear Mizore’s caution and timidity in the sound of the oboe.
The characters’ movements before and after the duet are full of interesting details. Before they begin, Mizore never takes her eyes off Nozomi. Nozomi says they should play the third movement, then busies herself trying out some flute fingerings. Mizore immediately starts turning the pages of her music, spending quite some time going through them one by one. Yet we never hear or see Nozomi turn a page. All we see is Nozomi trying out notes on her flute.
Once Mizore finds the third movement, the first “missed connection” occurs—a detail I am sure many viewers will not have noticed. Mizore first looks at Nozomi, sees that Nozomi is not looking at her but has taken up her playing position, then turns away and puts the reed in her mouth. After this, Nozomi turns to look at Mizore, sees that Mizore is not looking at her but has taken up her playing position, then turns back and begins to play. Before playing, the two do not exchange so much as a glance. “They are not sufficiently attuned to one another”: this is a very harsh criticism, but it is also a fact. At this point, Nozomi is as free as the blue bird; at this same point, she is also like Liz in overlooking the blue bird’s feelings.
Beyond the metaphor of Liz and the blue bird, we can infer something still more interesting. On arriving in the rehearsal room, Nozomi opens her music and tells Mizore how much she admires Yuriko Uda (there’s a limit to singing Matsuda’s praises). Mizore, however, does not open her music until Nozomi suggests playing together. Mizore is unenthusiastic about rehearsal, even reluctant to take part (probably because this will be her last formal ensemble performance with Nozomi in their final year of high school). She remains in this state until Ms. Niiyama’s question brings her to a realization, as we can see in the later conversation about the competition and the close-ups of the two during rehearsal, for instance. Unfortunately, Nozomi seems never to have noticed.
I generally call everything before the title appears the opening. Kyoto Animation has put a great deal of effort into this opening, packing an enormous amount of information into it. You could say that the rest of the film explores and resolves the questions posed here, within the tone established here. “Misalignment” and “missed connections”: the latter is fairly familiar, while the former is rather harder to grasp. Resolving both within the span of a single film is no easy task. Thankfully, Kyoto Animation offers a satisfying answer here.