In This Corner of the World (Sunao Katabuchi)

[Philip J. Fry]

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[Philip J. Fry]

Premieres in the US today, BTW.

[Peng]

Remember people marveling at how Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro were double features upon release? What if they are one and the same feature, combining the pastoral life and sunny outlook of its protagonist (Totoro) with increasingly horrific, unsparing encroachment of wartime affairs (Grave) into that life? Some feel they cancel each other out, but I find that the former helps the latter to become more powerfully affecting, not sliding straight into mere miserablism, while the latter helps underline the value of the former, transforming that life and outlook into poignant resilience necessary to get through tough times.

There's a dissolve into layered expressionism after the beginning of a horrific incident, absolving the audience of the need to see what happens, but also the visual keeps going and going in underlining one's trauma as it's occuring to them. It's both beautifully merciful and unbearably devastating at the same time, which could be the mission statement for this film in how it depicts these war-torn people and country. 8/10

[Philip J. Fry]

[Philip J. Fry]

Remember people marveling at how Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro were double features upon release? What if they are one and the same feature, combining the pastoral life and sunny outlook of its protagonist (Totoro) with increasingly horrific, unsparing encroachment of wartime affairs (Grave) into that life? Some feel they cancel each other out, but I find that the former helps the latter to become more powerfully affecting, not sliding straight into mere miserablism, while the latter helps underline the value of the former, transforming that life and outlook into poignant resilience necessary to get through tough times.

There's a dissolve into layered expressionism after the beginning of a horrific incident, absolving the audience of the need to see what happens, but also the visual keeps going and going in underlining one's trauma as it's occuring to them. It's both beautifully merciful and unbearably devastating at the same time, which could be the mission statement for this film in how it depicts these war-torn people and country. 8/10

Yeah, I'm with you with this. Although both haves couldn't have felt more distinct one from another, they never clash with each other, instead they reinforce them and makes particularly the second half (particularly that incident you mentioned), all the more heartbreaking.

[Philip J. Fry]