A very Japanese War Story

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2012)

If I cry watching movies, it's typically for things other people don't cry for. I have been known to shed tears watching Samurai movies. Epic scenes get me a little emotional. That said, I'm not generally one to get the proverbial down-pour.
In order to explain my reaction, I must explain that I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence in Japan. In addition to spending a year or so in Hiroshima, I remember meeting a lot of veterans, and talking to a lot of old people about their experiences during the war, and so on. As you probably know, the Japanese are not renowned for their overt emotion. No Englishman ever did a 'stiff upper lip' that could hold a candle to the average stoic Japanese geriatric. They always told their stories with a very 'matter-of-fact' manner. But there was one old couple, the Goto-sans, who left an indelible impression on me (bear in mind, I've met other people who were in the 5- mile blast radius at Nagasaki).
They had met as children after the bombing of Nagoya, and they recounted much of the very imagery that is illustrated in this film, right down to the machine-gunning by US navy aircraft of children running to the river , thinking they would not represent a legitimate target to the enemy. Their story had a very profound effect on my understanding of Japan, being as I was about 12 when I heard their stories.
Watching this film was very much like watching their story in detail. It was as if their recounted childhood memories had materialised on film. It felt as though it imposed their very personal pain onto my heart and mind. Yes, that's ridiculously melodramatic, but it's precisely how I felt watching it. The story of human tragedy in wartime is common to all cultures and societies the world over, and yet this is a uniquely Japanese story; not for the content of the story, but for the way in which it is told. Any film-maker from any other country tackling this subject-matter would have thought to make a film which could probably be made in any other country (the exception perhaps, being a Russian filmmaker);and any other filmmaker would have delivered a film which does absolutely nothing to move you beyond what we've all seen before in every other war film since, well, that war itself. I believe it is no hyperbole to say that never before in the history of cinema has the subject of innocence in wartime been so perfectly,tragically, heart- rendingly captured. Nothing in this film is an exaggeration. The story itself carries all the necessary emotion, with no use of any of the comparatively ridiculous devices used in a lot of other movies in the same category (and let's not forget, this IS animation). Even the music never becomes excessive or melodramatic. You know how the story ends, but you can't just draw away, and it still tears through you like a rend in linen. It was such an emotional experience for me that I've never been able to repeat viewing. It is such a hopeless tragedy of a story, and yet I felt so much the better for having watched it.