You do realize that the story is semi-autobiographical, correct?
My alignment is Chaotic Cute.
Yup. Except in real-life, the brother actually lived, which would make for a better movie than what we got.
@kkhohoh
You do realize that your reaction is exactly what the original author himself felt, correct? In the West, this film is often seen as an anti-war picture. But the author of the book, Akiyuki Nosaka, based Seita on himself — he too lost a sister to malnutrition during World War II. And he blamed himself for her death. He saw Seita's refusal to go back to the aunt as causing his sister's death due to pride. Seita dies because that's what the author felt he DESERVED for "allowing" his little sister to die of malnutrition.
Honestly, that makes the film FAR more tragic to me. Because everything you see onscreen is a depiction of what someone felt they deserved to go through for not being able to save someone they loved. The book is a personal apology to his sister. He felt guilty for eating the food he found instead of giving it to the sister who died of malnutrition.
He said:
Nosaka said that in the story, Seita "got increasingly transformed into a better human being" since he was trying to "compensate for everything I couldn't do myself" and that he was never "kind like the main character." Nosaka explained that "I always thought I wanted to perform those generous acts in my head, but I couldn't do so." He believed that he would always give food to his sister, but when he obtained food, he ate. The food tasted very good when it was scarce, but he felt remorse afterwards. Nosaka concluded "I'd think there is no one more hopeless in the world than me. I didn't put anything about this in the novel."
Honestly, it makes my heart ache for him just to think about it. He was a kid.
Look, I get your point, completely. Honestly, I do. But regardless of that, regardless of any reasons for why this was, I can't stand idiots. And Seita was an idiot. I understand WHY he was an idiot, but he was still an idiot. And yes, I understand this was semi-autobiographical, but Seita dying turned this into fiction nonetheless. Now, if this were a documentary or something, if it all really happened, I'd be fine with it. The brother still should have gone back, but it still would have actually happened, and it would be sad. But this was not sad, because this movie was still, at the end of the day, fiction. And this fictional character, who could have been written to not be an idiot, was still an idiot. And I can't tolerate fictional idiots.
(And again, if the entire plot of the movie was something that had actually happened, it would be sad and tear-jerking. In fact, what ACTUALLY happened is indeed tragic. But the movie isn't what actually happened because Seita died, and I'm sure there were other various smaller details that got changed from what really happened. So in the end, it's still fiction, and so I still can't get into this movie.)
@kkhohoho
The problem with your review, though, is that you say it fumbles the ball when, in fact, what you took from the film — frustration at Seita's "foolish pride" — is exactly what the author wanted to convey. So it isn't a fumble at all on the artist's part. That doesn't mean you have to LIKE the film, mind you. But it seems like what you took out of it is what was being said.
That being said, I don't think I agree that Seita's behavior was ham-fisted, manipulative, or unrealistically idiotic. But that's just my disagreement with you AND the author there.
I think you're actually right about that, and because of that, I've edited my review accordingly. You can check it out if you want.
If the movie were based on an autobiographical work where the main guy did die at the end (like, say, a movie based on a survivor's diary of events before succumbing to starvation), the movie would be just as tedious and painful to watch. The movie diverging from reality and having a different outcome than the real life event doesn't write the movie off - so what, you can excuse the frustration and tedium if everything that happened in the movie happened in real life? That's a bit of a cop-out.
But the complain wasn't so much tedium and boredom as it was disbelief and annoyance over said actions, which range on the line of thought that someone wouldn't do and or act a certain way.
I understand your frustration, kkhohoho, but it's not the author who is manipulative, it's the film's director (Isao Takahata). He added in the subtext that the boy is a proud, rebellious youth.
In the novel, he does indeed die, but this is made as an inevitable outcome. There simply wasn't enough food to go around, and the aunt was becoming paranoid about these two strangers taking more than they deserved. She drove them off as much as they deciced to leave.
Takahata left that out and gives the impression that the boy is to blame, all the while keeping the sense of inevitability. And he did this for an insidious socio-political end: he wanted to guilt-trip the young adults of the eighties, who were independent like no generation before and causing a wave (by Japanese standards) of youth crime. The children of the film were made to be stand-ins for their parents, and Takahata wanted to both remind them of how much they suffered in the war, and make them the objects of a moral about disobeying elders.
Basically, the novel was about one person's experience of war, the film twisted this into a contradictory morality play.
A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.
'And he did this for an insidious socio-political end: he wanted to guilt-trip the young adults of the eighties, who were independent like no generation before and causing a wave (by Japanese standards) of youth crime. The children of the film were made to be stand-ins for their parents, and Takahata wanted to both remind them of how much they suffered in the war, and make them the objects of a moral about disobeying elders.'
That, I knew about. What I didn't know about was that Takahata left out that bit about the dwindling food supplies and paranoia, which just makes me even more pissed off. In any case, I'll edit the review a bit to point out that it was more the director's fault, and not solely the authors'. Thanks.
I agree only partially with your review—Seita might’ve been wise to go back, but the aunt was a horrible person to be around, and after he ran off the rations were decreased again, so they probably would’ve just imposed on everyone had they gone back. I interpreted Seita’s reaction when advised to go back as understanding this.
That would be fine, if it were more obvious that Seita understood this. But to me, there wasn't anything in the film that really implied that he understood this. Whereas in the novel, the lack of food and supplies and the inevitably that came with that was more stated than in the movie, so it was more clear that if Seita went back, he might have just had to leave again anyway. But even if Seita would have imposed upon the aunt in the film as well, it never got that point of sheer inevitability to me; I still felt that if he had gone back in the film, he and his sister still would have been better off than attempting to live on their own. Heck, even if they did get kicked out, there could still be some weeks before that would have happened, so they would still have been better going back, rather than just refusing to go back at all.
Either way though, Seita's pride, and the consequences of that pride, are still at the forefront, with the point of showing that pride being to get those young whippersnappers to respect their elders and stay in line. I know that many movies manipulate the audience in some way or another, but many aren't so obvious about it.
It’s a combination of both. Seita’s actions, I think, were the result of both pride and understanding pragmatic concerns. I mean, they had to leave partially because of their fights over food, and because Setsuko was suffering from night terrors and, you know, being a helpless child in a traumatic situation, who would shout and cry in the middle of the night when everyone needed their energy to work in the morning after. Why Seita wouldn’t go volunteer to help putting out fires like his aunt expected was never explained and was pretty much my main beef with him.
You're a jerk. That's all I have to say.
\"But the director omitted this, and manipulated a mostly-true story of tragedy and loss in order to convey the folly of pride to Japanese delinquents in order to get across his own personal agenda; that is, to get those youngsters in line.\"
Well, given that\'s an outright lie, you and RJ Savoy are not just manipulating facts but making it from whole cloth. And that\'s far more vile than whatever imaginary sleight you\'re accusing the director of. The movie and the director are anti-authoritarian, and not even subtle about it.
The director HATES conformity and terrible authority figures. He\'s stated his loathing for Imperial Japan and how Japan\'s conformity helped drag the country into that war. That he personally thinks Seita was right to leave his parasite harpy of an aunt, because she\'s a representation of how fucked up society got. Takahata\'s also a firebombing survivor who incorporated his personal experiences in the film. Twisting his views 180 degrees into a brainwashing monster who manipulated the book\'s author? That\'s anti-vaxxer levels of atrocious bullshit.
Even if you\'ve never heard the director\'s statements, did you even watch the film? Seita\'s aunt sells his stuff off to feed her own family while being emotionally abusive and brow-beating. It may not have shown her dwindling food supplies, but that makes her worse for still trying to drive them off after taking everything of value from them. Blind faith that the dad and army would fix everything helped propel Seita\'s pride and mistakes. Both Seita and a fanatical soldier are literally shown in a bad light when they\'re possessed by patriotic pride, because conformity is a root cause in nothing being salvaged. Seita\'s delinquency is justified to survive, and the only good authority figure is the guy who refuses to punish him for it. The farmer punishing delinquency is shown as the heartless brute.
I have no idea how you\'d miss the movie making its delinquent sympathetic while showing the ones pushing him around as far bigger assholes. Going back to his aunt may have helped Seita survive, but nobody sane has ever looked at the third most loathed anime character of all time and thought, \"Gee, I sure wish I could obey an evil, abusive adult who hates me.\" In case you missed it in every last fairy tale, the wicked stepmother is actually the bad guy. And if your argument against that is, \"Well, a character looked at the audience...\" your interpretation of the story is tinfoil hat crazy.
I suggest you read the novel (there\'s a weirdly literal translation floating around). The first thing you\'ll notice is that it is very short. The film fleshes it out somewhat, but most of what it adds amounts to the two siblings doing sibling things and then suffering. And as you say, the aunt is much less sympathetic because it leaves out the motivation for her callousness. The novel sets out a concise scenario, the film only adds emotional manipulation while actually cutting out historical context. It amounts to a guilt trip.
This being Miyazaki\'s studio, I have no doubt much of the film expresses a genuine spirit of pacifism, and that is what most audiences today pick up. But there are several signs that pacifism was not the focus, most obviously near the end when a well-off family moving returning to their home is contrasted with dying sister. It makes no sense in an anti-war film.
I have nothing against Takahata, and I know he is admired by a niche fandom. Yet this film is powerful, but also shallow and manipulative, on a level with The Passion of the Christ or Visual Key works.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
\"It amounts to a guilt trip.\" You can\'t just repeat nonsense until it becomes true. There was a lot of suffering in the Children of Men, too. So I guess that movie was also secretly a guilt trip aimed at children for being the root cause.
\"This being Miyazaki\'s studio...\" It was headed just as much by Takahata. I know you\'re trying to sound informed, but you have no idea what you\'re babbling about.
\"But there are several signs that pacifism was not the focus, most obviously near the end when a well-off family moving returning to their home is contrasted with dying sister. It makes no sense in an anti-war film. \" The director has stated he didn\'t intend it as an anti-war film. But the way you\'re looking for \"signs\" that the movie is secretly evil is kind of dumb, especially when he\'s repeatedly stated its intent.
\"Yet this film is powerful, but also shallow and manipulative\" I would describe people like you the same way, endlessly forcing your agenda while ignoring facts. You insist Takahata\'s intent was to milk Seita as the biggest victim ever as a guilt trip, while the YMMV says he was intended to be an unsympathetic asshat. Those ideas aren\'t even compatible with each other, never mind what Takahata has repeatedly said.
Horrible pseudo-intellectuals have been making up whatever dark purpose they feel like for the director. I\'m not the biggest fan of his work, but given he\'s one of the few guys in Japan who openly criticizes the country\'s conformity, making him out to be enforcing it is some of the scummiest, most disingenuous bullshit I\'ve seen in a while.
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Grave of the Idiot Plot
If other people tell you about this movie, they may tell you that it's a stirring war-tale that shows the horror of war in a way films rarely do, and in the process, brings tears to their eyes. Part of this is true. The first half does indeed show the horrors of war, and is an interesting first half of a film. But as for the second half of the film, I originally said it 'fumbled the ball.' This is not the case. Instead, it presented exactly what the director wanted to present ,to the point where I couldn't bring myself to shed a single tear.
Instead, I was metaphorically banging my head due to the Idiot Ball on the part of the protagonist that makes up the second half of the movie. If the kid had just gone back to his aunt and apologized, (as virtually every other single character told him to do,) both he and his sister would still be alive. I understand that the director's idea was to show where pride gets you, as well as to comment on the state of Japanese youngsters at the time the movie was made, but to do so in such a way that presents your protagonist as an idiot is nothing short of manipulative and ham-fisted. Supporting this is the fact that, while this is semi-autobiographical, the protagonist, Seita, dies in the film, but in the actual real events that this story is based on, he survived. That part was the author's fault, but in the novel this film was based upon, the sibling's deaths were still not entirely their own fault, but were also the fault of inevitability, as food supplies were short, and the aunt wouldn't be able to take care of both the siblings and her own children anyway. But the director omitted this, and manipulated a mostly-true story of tragedy and loss in order to convey the folly of pride to Japanese delinquents in order to get across his own personal agenda; that is, to get those youngsters in line. Because of that, all I could do past the half-way point was grit my teeth and mutter, 'Go back to the aunt, go back to the aunt, go back to the aunt...!'
This film had a promising beginning, but didn't follow up on that promise, and presented us with one of the most maddeningly frustrating Idiot Balls and instances of gross manipulation I have ever born witness to. You can alter a true story within reason, but this film warped the facts enough to the point where the true story's essence is lost.