Almost unbearably depressing

Rating: 9/10 (15 April 2014)

I found this movie so painful to watch that I could only do it in 15- minute spurts (until the end). Perhaps some of the impact on me reflects my having spent four years in Japan and having recently visited friends in Kobe, where the film is set.
The movie is lyrically, beautifully sad. It's fascinating that American critics view it as an antiwar film, whereas the director said it's not about that at all, but rather about the necessity of living in society and making the best of it. It's one of those divergences of opinion that gaijin experience while living in Japan, of people seeing things in such a remarkably different way than you do.
Reviewers here who have criticized the young man for not working for food don't realize just how short food was in Japan at the end of the war. I worked with a man who told me how his family ate rats to survive. We Americans, for the most part, simply have no comprehension of that.
I watched the English-language version; according to Wikipedia, the voice of the little girl is far more poignant in Japanese.
Even though I gave the film a 9, it's hard to say I recommend it. Once I saw how sad the film was going to be (or, at least, how I was going to experience it as such), I almost stopped watching it. But then I felt rather ridiculous about that, considering the millions who've experienced -- and continue to experience -- what these characters go through.