Interesting follow up watch to "Oppenheimer" to say the least...
This movie is quite slow, feeling more like Kurosawa pondering the bombing attacks of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by exploring a single Japanese family in the aftermath. I'm not sure there is a real story here, other than the grandmother having some major PTSD from the attacks. The children actors were fairly bad and did not convince me at all that they were real people. But I have to commend the visual style of the picture. Each shot feels painterly in how it's composed, and Kurosawa follows his later career dream like imagery in this and it's effective.
I disliked the ending quite a bit, and thought Richard Gere was unnecessary, however when the film does explore the morality of the Japanese bombings, it gets way more interesting. I especially liked how all the kids wore shirts from various American universities to show the cultural impact the U. S still has on Japan despite the horrific bombings in the 1940's. Overall, I would only watch this if you want to watch Kurosawa's work, but as a standalone film, a lot of it does not work. Even some of the commentary felt a little biased on the bombings considering there were more reasons why the bombs were dropped that just weren't mentioned at all in this.
This movie is quite slow, feeling more like Kurosawa pondering the bombing attacks of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by exploring a single Japanese family in the aftermath. I'm not sure there is a real story here, other than the grandmother having some major PTSD from the attacks. The children actors were fairly bad and did not convince me at all that they were real people. But I have to commend the visual style of the picture. Each shot feels painterly in how it's composed, and Kurosawa follows his later career dream like imagery in this and it's effective.
I disliked the ending quite a bit, and thought Richard Gere was unnecessary, however when the film does explore the morality of the Japanese bombings, it gets way more interesting. I especially liked how all the kids wore shirts from various American universities to show the cultural impact the U. S still has on Japan despite the horrific bombings in the 1940's. Overall, I would only watch this if you want to watch Kurosawa's work, but as a standalone film, a lot of it does not work. Even some of the commentary felt a little biased on the bombings considering there were more reasons why the bombs were dropped that just weren't mentioned at all in this.