Isao Takahata's Second World War drama (first released in 1988) is so good it hurts. Really, it's agony to watch. I, perhaps unwisely, took an eight-year-old to see it. When she'd finished howling, she whispered, "Please, I need to see the happier version!" The director's great coup is to deliver a bleak and realistic narrative using the cutest of animation.
Fourteen-year-old Seita and his little sister Setsuko look like Donny and Marie Osmond. They adore each other and discover beaches, glades and night-time skies that shimmer with hazy-lazy sweetness. But wait. We’re in Kobe, Japan, 1945, and, after a bombing raid, we see their mother’s bandaged body being feasted on by maggots.
Soon, Setsuko’s limbs become covered in rashes; towards the end, she can’t control her bowels. We’re so used to seeing the human spirit triumph. Here, we’re allowed to understand how it might fail.
