Hiroshima, August 1945. Young Gen and his Brother Shinji are helping their parents on the land, trying to make up for wartime food shortages. When the atomic bomb is unleashed, Gen survives and has to assist his mother to give birth. Around them are homes in flames and people dying of burns or poisoned by radioactive fall out. One of the best adaptations of the Keiji Nakazawa’s deeply moving semi-autobiographical manga. —http://www.pardo.ch/jahia/Jahia/home/film/cache/bypass?appid=11456_34&appparams=http://www.pardo.ch/jpwacatalog/pardo/film.do%3Fid%3D327322&resetAppSession=true#
Rawer, more visceral and, quite frankly, more genuine than the betterly animated, more poetic but less spontaneous Grave of the Fireflies, this harrowing animation may feel inadequately childish at times, given its subject matter, but it's supposed to be told "as seen through the eyes of a boy" and more than just a righteous antiwar picture it is a powerful statement of the resilience of children.
Solidarity and a sense of community on collective tragedies, that's the message of a film that has much more cultural and educational value than artistic and cinematic. The realistic approach leaves its marks as the bombing on bodies, and that's was remarkable for the animation world as in Takahata's Grave of the fireflies later. The manga is surely even more revealing.
A movie adapted from classic anti-nuke manga series. I think the manga is one of the most important pieces of literature from Japan. The movie doesn't have a great production value and it is not very good. But, it is powerful nonetheless. Netflix says this is a "fantasy" movie. How sad. All the incidents depicted in the movie are based from facts. How sad and maddening.
If you loved Grave of the Fireflies, then I would definitely recommend its less popular counterpart, Barefoot Gen. Both films are emotionally draining, yet rewarding at the same time. While Fireflies… read review
