ICHIBAN UTSUKUSHII NATSU
(FIREFLY DREAMS)
2001

February 26, 2002
Cinequest San Jose Film Festival
Japan
Japanese

Notes: "Japanese teenager Naomi is too much for her parents to handle...she has orange hair and skips school to go dancing or shopping.....she smokes and drinks.....her parents are caught up in their own estrangement.....while they go through their own angst, Naomi is sent to her aunt's house in the country for the summer to help out the running of a country inn.....she is bored silly at first but then it grows on her as she takes bike rides through the forest.....she had visited this place as a child and has fond memories of it.....she meets a boy and develops a crush.....but her best times are spent with a grandma figure who lives alone on a farm down the road.....she used to be something of a looker who once lived in Tokyo.....she gets close to Naomi.....the older woman's heart was broken by a handsome 'liar'.....they become friends....the old woman finally says 'I wish we had been girls together. We would have been great friends' Naomi says, 'we are good friends, aren't we?'.....one woman is looking back on her life as Naomi is just starting.....magical.....beautiful Japanese countryside.....slow, cool pacing.....Naomi is a revelation.....cute as a button, trying to be tough, critical, but vulnerable just beneath the surface.....the elder woman says 'you know you're cute'.....Naomi does but then again, she doesn't.....She isn't sure of her attractiveness or plan in the world....the guidance that the old woman shows will prove to be indispensible.....a magical film that I hope to see again....."