Time Leap

Two of the movies I watched yesterday had time as an important concept. Time leap is where we get to take a short travel or a kind of jump into another time, whether in the past or in the future. The movies reiterated the importance that time can either heal or hurt us and those around us. It also emphasizes the notion that you've got do what you've got to do.. as soon as possible and as right a time as possible. In the words of Chiaki Mamiya in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, "Time waits for no one!"

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: This Japanese animated movie has been in my collection for weeks now, but I've only had the chance to watch it yesterday. It has a very flowing plot, and the story is very heartwarming. There were scenes that made me cringe, particularly the episodes where the main character, Konno Makoto, and her friends are supposed to be killed in an accident. But I guess it was part of the impact that the movie wanted to give to the audience. Time leaping, when used in an irresponsible and careless acts of selfishness, can cause hurt to others. Makoto was really hapy about being able to leap back into the past to correct her unlucky cicrumstances, but in every episode she changed there was always a person who gut hurt. And they get hurt harder than she was. A fellow classmate was constantly bullied, and her friends got killed. And before she knew it, she only had one more chance to leap through time and fix everything.

Frequency: There wasn't exactly a person leaping through time in this movie. But if you consider talking to a person from another time through a battered old radio as leaping through time (like I do), then let us consider time leap as one of the modes in the movie. John Sullivan gets a chance to talk to his father, Frank Sullivan, who died in his fireman duties when John was still a child, through a radio control system that his father owned when he was still alive. Through this, John was able to warn and save his father from getting killed in a fire accident. But while his father got to survive to see John grow into a cop, his mother was gone and murdered years ago instead. In a race through time to save his mother, both John and his father track the serial killer who killed his mother. I especially like the ending of the movie, where both father and son were assaulted by the killer in their own times.

It goes without saying that time leap can have disastrous consequences. There will always be a losing end to the bargain. But it also shows us how time can help and heal. In John's case, they were able to save his mother and keep their family intact. In Makoto's case came the knowledge that time still flows and balances equations even if you go back and make yourself an addition, thereby realizing that in every happiness there is pain. All we can do is learn how to cope with it and flow with time.

"Time waits for no one!"