After the Programming Childhood Intermission, I decided to rewatch this. Everyone sings the praises of this movie, and Takahata is one of my favorite anime directors. I figured it was worth another try just in case my memory of this movie was flawed and it was actually a much better than I remembered it. And in fact, the first half of the film is pretty good. I was mostly on-board with everything until it hit about the 50 minute mark. Basically, the point at which Seita turns into an annoying asshat and the romanticization of his relationship with Setsuko gets out of hand. After that, the movie was grating my nerves so badly I had to turn it off. I eventually managed to finish it, but only just barely. Seriously, a very sad two minute montage of a little girl playing set to an incredibly somber version of "There's No Place Like Home?" Not exactly going for subtlety, I guess. 

I'm always surprised when people describe this as an anti-war film, because there isn't anything anti-war about it, as far as I can see. Sure, it takes place during the war and misfortune befalls the characters as a direct result, but essentially the war is just the backdrop. It could've been set at any time and in any place. Takahata never intended it to be an anti-war film, and author of the novel wrote it as an apology/love letter to his younger sister. In fact, I'd say the movie goes out of its way not to make any sort of statement about WWII or wars generally at all. Primarily, Grave of the Fireflies is trying to shame its audience, and it uses heavy-handed, manipulative tactics to do it.

So I remain in the minority of people who don't like this movie.
4/10

And there's nothing wrong with that. It brother IS an idiot, in fact killing his sister. They could have lived a good life with the aunt if he had stayed there and obeyed her rules. The author kills his younger self because he's ashamed he lived.

As far as being anti-war, any film that deals with those affected by war is almost anti-war by definition. It may not be the main point, but it is there. The director need not have intended that message for it to, in fact, be there, especially when we are dealing with a film where others working on it may have injected that feel. I DO think some of our admiration of this film comes from comparing it to Barefoot Gen, the other auto-biographical kid in WWII anime. That movie, about a boy who survives Hiroshima, is incredibly upbeat and hopeful in its ending. I haven't seen its sequel, or even knew it existed until looking at Wiki. The fact that one never made a splash among the US anime community probably tells me a lot about it

"Watch me pull a sword out of my ass."

Last edited by Lamer (2013-12-16 21:51:25)

Yeah, what the fuck was up with that? It's not a continuity error or anything. Everytime he does that, Refn gives us a shot of his back to establish that, no, he doesn't have a sword back there. And then he cuts to the guy's front, and he pulls out the sword! I didn't understand what the point of that was, and there was clearly some sort of intent, since Refn emphasized it so much.

Pretty much, yeah. But nothing else in the movie operates under that sort of logic, so it makes no sense.

A perfect example of why you should never find out what an artist intended something to mean

Best of luck with that. A film so excruciatingly bad I've developed a pathological loathing for it. I'm convinced the film is a test to see how irritatingly vague, lifeless and pointless a film you can make and still be lauded for it by some art house afficionado.

Hey, there's music from Only God Forgives in there!

Wait, you don't think...

7.5/10

7/10

8/10

7.5/10

7/10

7/10

The Wolverine. Was with it right up to the third act.

I liked the setting, there were interesting moments, and for the most part it looked ok (barring anything to do with aging). It hits the crazy train towards the end, and the script seems to have been replaced by a bowl of jelly beans. Too many "Wait, why would person Y perform action Z?", "Why was person X in the film in the first place?", and underwhelming resolutions.

Disappointing, but better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Just watched Anchorman for the first time before quickly driving to catch the day's last showing of the sequel. The first one is very clever and extremely funny. The second isn't as clever or funny, but it has some great Daily Show-style satire of 24-hour cable news. I like them both a lot.

...that's alot of movies... Nice!