Only Yesterday

Name: Only Yesterday
Director: Isao Takahata
Released: 1991

Synopsis

On a trip to the countryside to pick safflowers, a young Japanese woman recalls her life when she was ten years old.

100
RogerEbert.com
Like “Kaguya,” it functions as a highly sensitive and empathetic consideration of the situation of women in Japanese society—but it’s also a breathtaking work of art on its own.
100
The Film Stage
Only Yesterday is unabashedly modest, but in its twin dialogues between the past and the present, and the undying lure of the country and the city, it’s a singularly specific story whose message echoes decades later.
91
The A.V. Club
Only Yesterday is animated, but rarely cartoony, in either its design or its storytelling.
90
Village Voice
It's both an important part of Ghibli's history and a gem in its own right.
90
The New York Times
Mr. Takahata’s psychologically acute film, which was based on a manga, seems to grow in impact, too, as the adult Takao comes to a richer understanding of what she wants and how she wants to live.
88
Slant Magazine
It uses the trappings of the family melodrama to reveal the subtle social constraints that inhibit people, particularly women, from attaining full self-realization.
88
Washington Post
Small moments take on larger meaning in this exquisite memoir. That’s as true of the plot — in which nothing terribly significant happens, except life — as it is of the visuals.
88
Boston Globe
Takahata and his animators balance aspects of nostalgia and the present day, urban modernity and rural timelessness, love and regret with a visual and aural sensitivity that draws a viewer in from the first frames.