Heartbreakingly Beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (8 April 2008)

I'd heard that this film was very sad before I saw it and knew how it ended but that didn't prepare me for just how harrowing this film was.
Instead of focusing on the military this war film focuses on two children, Seita a boy in his early teens and Setsuko his four year old sister. The action is not fast paced as we follow the children's lives from the death of their mother in a fire-bombing raid through a stay with an unpleasant aunt and trying to live on their own in an abandoned air raid shelter to their inevitable end. By taking it slowing and showing the mundane aspects of their lives the viewer grows to care about the characters, especially the delightful Setsuko to such an extent that that I was smiling during flash backs showing her playing while simultaneously sobbing at her loss.
This is not a film to be watched if one is depressed but it should certainly be seen by as many people as possible at least once, it may show two children in war torn Japan but it could easily be set in any war zone at any time in history.