A wonderful movie!

Rating: 10/10 (6 April 2008)

The movie is from Japan and it is 20 years old -- it feels fresh as if done yesterday and there is no cultural barrier whatsoever. The drawings of the landscape are fantastic and are alone worth watching this movie: the reflection of the sun on the leaves of the trees, the reflection of the sky in the rice paddies, the high summer clouds, the flowers detailed and colorful.
Two girls, maybe four and ten, move with their father into their new house in this landscape. How they discover, befriend, and master their new environment is shown in a detailed, loving, but not sentimental way. Watching these girls create their own adventures and act and react in them, is delightful. Even more, they reveal something deeply human; and the audience can rediscover its own humanness by watching and identifying with them.