I posted here a few days ago about being blown away by Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky and someone suggested I should now watch Grave of the fireflies - not read any reviews online, just go and watch it.
I got curious so that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t know anything about the story and although I did expect it to be emotional, I didn’t realize just how emotional.
This film is so rich. It’s just as terrifying as it is charming, and as someone who’s always rooted for animated films, I feel Grave of the fireflies gives the genre a whole new meaning.
If you haven’t seen it, do as I did: don’t read about it, just go and watch it. Then read about it.
Edit: u/RSperfect thanks for the recommendation!
‘68 (1988): SPOILERS AHEAD: [AVAILABLE FOR FREE WITH ADS ON TUBI]: I wish there had been more films in the 80s that explored the political and sociological aspects of the late 1960s in the United States. Most filmmakers in the 80s were of the age to have clearly remembered that turbulent time period and it would have been nice to have their stories and perspectives made into more films (Oliver Stone’s films and The Wonder Years TV show being exceptions). The indie film movement was nascent in 1988 and I think if the indie film market had been bigger during this decade, we would have seen more interesting films about this time period. However, we do have this indie film from filmmaker Steven Kovacs that has musician Neil Young acting in it. This film didn’t do much for me, but I did get enjoyment from recognizing all of the San Francisco locations (and seeing how much they have changed from 1988 to now).
This film ambitiously attempts to tell the story of one year of a Hungarian family that emigrated to San Francisco in the late 1950’s to look for a better life. Zoltan the father (Sándor Técsy) and his wife Anna (Anna Dukasz) have just opened a small Hungarian restaurant. Their two boys Peter (Eric Larson) and Sandy (Robert Locke) are just starting to enter adulthood. Peter, the eldest son, is a U.C. Berkeley student (Go Bears!) and gets involved in the counterculture movemement, gets kicked out of college, and buys a motorcycle. Sandy, the younger son, struggles with being gay and he finally comes out at the end of the movie. Major events in 1968 such as RFK and MLK’s assassinations are also covered in this film.
There are a lot of themes and sub-plots going on in this 1 hour 38 minute movie and that is the problem with it. The film needed to either be longer or have been done as a mini-series to properly encapsulate everything the filmmaker wanted to do here. There seems to be an important turning point in every single scene of the movie. The director obviously has a lot to say and he tried to cram as much as he could in his movie instead of selecting and more deeply exploring only a few key moments from each character. Because of this, important moments in the characters’ lives are given short shrift. For example, in a matter of 15-20 minutes, the youngest son goes from hitting on girls, marries one of them to the dismay of his parents, and then is discovered in a gay bar by his older brother. There is no setup whatsoever for this reveal. Sim
... keep reading on reddit ➡
)