Barefoot gen / Grave of the fireflies / When the wind blows

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when the wind blows

Director: Jimmy T. Murakami
Writers: Raymond Briggs (book) Raymond Briggs (screenplay)
Release Date: 11 March 1988 (USA)
Genre:Animation | Drama | War

file info: MPEG-4 File Format, Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 672x544 25.00fps [Video]
Audio: AAC 24000Hz stereo 768Kbps [Audio]

This film is an amazing contrast: its extremely dark subject matter is totally belied by the beautifully-drawn backdrops and sweet cartoon style. As adult animations are so rare this style grabs you at once, and it is impossible not to be gripped. Anyone who doesn't remember the Cold War should note that the advice about the doors and painting the windows white was the true advice at the time. Where this film is so effective is its perfect charicatures of elderly folk determined to keep the British stiff upper lip, with no idea about nuclear weapons. My grandparents are exactly like this couple, I could see my nan also bringing in the washing during the four-minute warning. We never see the couple's son but his refusal to adhere to the government's "Protect & Survive" advice, singing the Tom Lehrer song down the phone to his father, is a far more realistic attitude towards what is about to happen. Living only 12 miles from London when I first saw this film I was inclined to agree with the son (and still do). Although the geopolitical map of the world is different now this is still an immensely valuable film as it shows what the risks were during the Cold War and is a chilling reminder that although the Cold War may be over, the weapons are still here. It could not be more different in presentation to the equally brilliant but far more horrifying Threads - but the message is the same.

screens

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Genres: drama
Themes: Historical, Military, War, World War Two
Age rating: Older Children (May contain mild bad language, bloodless violence)
Plot Summary: On the final days of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his four-year-old sister Setsuko are orphaned after their mother is killed during an air-raid by American forces in Kobe, Japan. After having a falling-out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency funds and rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko must struggle to survive their hardships as well as those of their country, which is on the losing end of the war.

imdb rating :8.2/10 25,723 votes Top 250: #198

video info
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 720x480 (853:480) 29.97fps [Video]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz 6ch [Audio]
Subtitle: VobSub [Subtitle]
kalbos: anglu, japonu ir daugybe subtitru

When I watched this movie, I steeled myself for a traumatic experience, based on every review I'd ever read of it, which usually include phrases like "don't watch this if you're suicidal." Instead, if I had to pick a single word to sum up the movie I saw, it would probably be 'beautiful'.

Certainly it was sad, and arguably depressing, but I've read this movie compared with 'Saving Private Ryan'. That's ridiculous. 'Grave of the Fireflies' is gentle and poetic more often than it's violent, and it's remarkably restrained in its anti-war message. It simply tells a story : there's very little at all in the way of moralizing or polemics. Why would a story like this need such heavy-handed tactics?

I've also read it argued that the movie is robbed of any suspense or impact when it's revealed in the opening scene that the main characters are dead. I have a quite different view of that device.

Firstly. the beginning of 'Fireflies' is, for all intents and purposes, a 'happy ending'. This is such a non-linear plot development that you could fail to notice it, and thereby only see the movie's gloom. The moment where the ghostly Seita takes the ghostly Setsuko's hand and nods to her is not only a happy moment, it signifies that the suffering - which is yet to come, as far as the viewer is concerned - is over, and they are together again (albeit still without parents).

As for a character revealing that he is dead in the first line of the movie, this is a device which has been used in centuries if not Milena. The crucial thing here is that 'Fireflies' isn't _about_ tension. It tells a story whose ultimate conclusion you already know (a legitimate narrative approach), and everything which happens during that story is emotionally infused with a foreknowledge of its ending. You find yourself hoping that things will go right now for Setsuko and Seita, and then the knowledge that ultimately it won't undercuts you with real emotional power. You know the characters are going to die, but you hope things won't be so bad in the meantime. It doesn't take much of an effort to make that an analogy for our own lives, which makes us all fireflies.

Perhaps what might make someone feel disappointed or cheated by this film is simply that it's so damn honest. I mean that: it's one of the most honest, artifice-free movies I've ever seen. It doesn't even really try to ram an anti-war message down your throat there is very little overt violence, and if there are some scenes of corpses and suffering, it's never gratuitous, and it's over quickly. Compare this with 'Private Ryan', where you have to suffer through 40 minutes of the most horrific blood and guts, only to reach a conclusion which, after much blood and thunder, signifies very little.

'Fireflies', OTOH, has far more beauty than gore. This is what really surprised me about it. Probably two thirds of the movie takes place in gorgeously drawn, tranquil rural or urban settings, with an almost pleasant dreamlike quality - even when the American bombers are flying overhead at one point there is a surreal, almost serene sense to it - and there are plenty of moments of happiness to offset the undeniably sadness and frustration of other scenes.

Perhaps best of all, Setsuko is one of the very, very few (if not the only) animated 4 year-old I've ever seen who actually _behaves_ like a four year old. I'm so sick of seeing preternaturally smart, sassy, sophisticated and precocious children in Hollywood movies. Setsuko's emotion and behaviors are _exactly_ right for a completely normal four year-old, and recognizing this lends many scenes incredible poignancy. Similarly, Seita is a teenage boy who behaves with the sort of mixture of pride, compassion and hubris which you'd expect of someone his age. He still believes that Japan will win the war he thinks it's up to him to take care of his sister with their mother gone and father who knows where. This leads him to make mistakes: possibly the most obvious one being where he fails to take the farmer's advice, swallow his pride and ask his nasty aunt to take them back in again. You would probably have to say his decision not to even try - to go it alone instead, was a very bad one, but - hello, people - here is a character who makes mistakes because he's actually human: a believable teenage boy in an extraordinary situation, who doesn't miraculously save the day, because his best judgment just isn't good enough.

Of course, his aunt may well have knocked them back anyway. Who knows?

Don't go into the film expecting tension, drama or even a tirade against war. It's a movie about the beauty and fragility of life and youth. If you think Japanese animation is all giant robots and superhuman schoolgirls, this could be the film which changes your mind. It's slow, poetic, beautiful and sad, and extraordinarily honest.

I must be the only person who didn't cry during this film (and I mean, I get choked up during some Disney movies). Yes, it is sad, but its beauty and honesty is what I'll remember.

NB: this review refers to the subtitled version of the film.

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Genres: action, drama
Themes: Historical, World War Two
Age rating: Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)
Plot Summary: It's the summer of 1945. 3 years have elapsed since the war between Japan and USA began. Gen is a young boy living a struggling yet satisfying life in the city of Hiroshima, that has been strangely spared by the bombing taken in almost every other Japanese City. Food is scarce, and Gen's family is suffering from severe malnutrition, which endangeres his pregnant mother. There isn't much spare time as Gen and his little brother Shinji help their father and mother at work and try to make sure their family survives the tought times. Little do they know, what the Americans have in store for the city of Hiroshima and as of the 6th of August 1945, their lives are about to change dramatically.

video info: Video: XVID 544x416 23.98fps [Video]
Audio: MPEG Audio Layer 3 48000Hz mono 90Kbps [Audio]
kalba: japonu su engl subtitlias

imdb reitingas: 8.4/10 1,081 votes

If you haven't seen this film, make it a top priority to track it down.

Barefoot Gen, the animated version of the autobiographical manga by Keiji Nakazawa, is an unflinching first-hand look at the result of dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian target. Comparisons to Grave of the Fireflies will abound, but for me personally Barefoot Gen was the more moving of the two. Though it centers on the effects of the atom bomb, the fact is this could be about any war, and any people. It is a story for all of humanity.

Barefoot Gen is filled with its fair share of caricatured mannerisms, but calling it a dramedy is pushing it. There isn't much to laugh at and even when the characters act a little over-the-top, the overall effect hits its mark (strongly). What makes the story even more powerful is knowing it comes from a survivor of the attack, and the honesty with which the film doles out darker and darker shades of life in the aftermath of the bombing (including subtle things one might not think about).

I think this along with Grave of the Fireflies belongs in every collection, even if you will only watch it once or twice, if only to show it to future generations. Its one thing to see a big explosion relating to the a-bomb in almost every other anime, but its another thing entirely to see the reality of it, and its aftermath.

At the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, it made me want to burn flags. Not just from one country, but from all countries... to put it another way, I wish we could be united by our common humanity.

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