A Response To The Negative Reviews

Rating: 10/10 (23 April 2008)

No-one looks at good reviews which is why I gave this movie one star, though I rate it 10.
In short, the story focuses on 14-year old Seita and his sister Setsuko, and the movie opens with Seita's death, alone on a train platform, dishevelled and starving. Cut to the beginning. In war-torn Japan, the children lose their mother who is horrifically killed during an air raid. They then go to live with their aunt and there are many happy and beautiful scenes of the children who obviously love each other dearly. After their aunt making it painfully obvious she resents caring for them, the children leave to go and live in an abandoned bomb shelter while trying to live on the money left in their mother's bank account. Eventually, after a few more poignant and touching scenes, it becomes clear the children are running out of food, and the climax of the film sees Seita returning to the shelter with some food and Setsuko, thin and dirty, lying on the floor, hallucinating, where she dies of starvation as Seita tries to feed her. He then cremates her and puts her ashes in the fruit drop tin she so loved and the movie ends, with the obvious recollection of the beginning of the film, Seita dying alone on a train platform clutching the fruit drop tin.
The negative response for this movie stems from people's apparent dislike of the characters. They say that Setsuko and Seita are annoying, and to an extent I can agree. Though Setsuko is just a young girl, that is all the annoyance that comes from her.
What seems to really grate on people is, Seita knows his sister is malnourished and starving, when he takes her to the doctor it is shown how painfully skinny and ill she is, yet he refuses to go back to his aunt. She would have taken them back in in a heartbeat, but despite knowing this, and despite advice from a farmer who tells him to, he declines, ultimately resulting in his and his sister's deaths. He lets his pride get the better of him. All I can say to that is, that is supposed to be a part of the film. It isn't some plot-fall that was overlooked, it is an obvious and meaningful part of the film. They're just children. Seita left his aunt in the first place for no reason other than he did not want to get a job and support the family who had taken him in. But this movie is based on a true story, and it is supposed to be an apology from the real-life brother, who survived, to his sister who died from starvation. He felt he could have done more to help her and, anti-war sentiments aside, this is what the movie is supposed to be about.
So people should look past Seita's arrogance and see the film for what it truly is. A stunningly beautiful and absolutely heart-wrenching picture that will completely and utterly shatter you.