Only Yesterday

おもひでぽろぽろ

Taeko Okajima, a 27-year-old Tokyo office worker, takes leave to help with the safflower harvest at her relatives' farm in rural Yamagata. The trip keeps summoning vivid memories of herself as a fifth-grader in 1966, and the film cuts between the grown Taeko and her ten-year-old self as the two timelines speak to each other. In the countryside she grows close to Toshio, a young farmer whose view of rural life pushes her to weigh who she became against who she once meant to be. This is Studio Ghibli's 1991 feature directed by Isao Takahata.