I watched this movie with extreme curiosity, almost like entering a sort of tunnel/time machine that takes you to a space-time dimension that is truly touching for how far it is from current cinematic logic; It is undoubtedly a solid melodrama, with all the components of the case (starting with the usual dynamics and problems of social class) that finds, in my opinion, a winning choice in the superb locations of San Francisco
(I had to smile remembering that even alternative musicians such as Makoto Kubota of the psychedelic band
Les Rallizes Denudes lived and played in California in the early 70s, just to say...) and in Obayashi's never banal film direction choices, which finds a capacity for synthesis, as well as some sudden directional changes
(see the 'accident' that is the cause of the meeting between the protagonist and her future husband).
Everything is undoubtedly overloaded and pushed to the extreme, the protagonist couple, extraordinarily famous at the time and also a couple in life, (I later discovered) love each other and break up in a sort of flamboyant amour-fou comings and goings with repeated plane flights ( beautifully synthesised by directorial solutions that are as simple as they are absolutely effective) or by efficient narrative re-propositions (the alternative club, but also the beginning and the end along the Golden Gate) and the story would be all here, undoubtedly not dissimilar from many others but certainly not banal, thanks to an excellent direction by a master who is never ordinary, even on a theme as simple as Take Me Away! The music is also beautiful
7,5/10