Masahiro Shinoda's Epitaph to My Love is a peculiar, uneven romance that arguably feels more like a formal exercise in melodrama for Shinoda than a fully-formed entity. With that in mind, Epitaph to My Love remains a compelling and intriguing film ripe for intellectual investigation and inquiry. Shinoda's penchant for detailing the social ills of society from a youthful lens is embedded into the conceptual framework of this sweeping melodrama, with Epitaph to My Love being a story of lovers who find themselves separated by social-economic externalities that impede their internal desires. The pervasive nature of economic instability and the grand impediments it places on personal autonomy are wonderfully illustrated here. Poverty is untethered from any type of moral or ethical judgment and instead viewed as a restrictive force on those individuals trapped in it, their fears restricting their freedom of choice in a system where economic progress supplants social assurance. Our natural proclivity towards love and connection is ultimately one that is restricted due to societal conditions, and throughout Epitaph to My Love's heightened melodramatic narrative framework Shinoda details how such obstacles oppose the purity of human desire. Even memory itself, something wholly rooted in an individual's consciousness becomes coerced and manipulated by the larger external forces that be. Why I say this film feels like a formal exercise is because Masahiro Shinoda largely attempts to graft his underlying ideals onto a melodramatic framework. It's uneven but ultimately a memorable experience that exalts and examines how societal factors can ultimately subvert the purity of love.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|