If there were more than 10 stars to give

Rating: 10/10 (8 June 2014)

My father was a B-29 pilot part of the 315th Bomb Wing in Guam. Growing up, he never talked about WWII, ever. Despite a first class American education, I never learned about the fire-bombing of Japan. Having watched this great film, I now know why, and more importantly that it happened.
I watch and rate lots of films and rarely give any film 10-stars. If there were more to give, I would. Besides being a great film, beautifully made, at an emotional depth I feel otherwise impossible, I understand my father's reluctance. He chose to be buried in the Houston National Cemetery and was interred there In June of 2004, so his role in WWII was of obvious importance to him.
The film's impetus, however, was to look deeper into that role, to understand it from the eyes of two Kobe war orphans on the ground under those fireflies laying waste to their lives, their cities, their nation. War from the perspective of civilians and their great casualty. For that, I'd recommend Mark Selden's excellent article "A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq".
Because it continues. Because it was then and is now a crime. Because it must stop.
I thank the artists.