As I mentioned last time, most of my exposure to war movies while growing up were about the Spanish Civil War.
Any good ones you'd recommend? I haven't seen any on that topic and it could be interesting.
I believe the first one I saw as a kid was
La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly's tongue), and it's one that often comes up on the topic. There's both more and less depressing than that one. If you are into that, I hear that, for a pitch-black story of loss of innocence,
Pa Negre (Black bread) is up there, though I haven't watched it (came out right after I left Spain); it is set right after the war, not like it changes much. Uplifting movies that are neither contemporary propaganda nor written by foreigners are rare, though they do exist.
I would be curious to hear what you think if you end up watching either.
Pan's Labyrinth is a... different way of approaching the topic, though it is probably the most internationally well-known movie set during the Spanish Civil War now. Note that Guillermo del Toro is Mexican.
I think we've had this discussion before pac, but yes, the boy is responsible for everything bad that happens. He's, what, 15 ? Maybe a bit older ? In any case, he's rather young, he just lost his mother in a horrific manner and his aunt - while justified in some ways - doesn't handle the situation well at all.
The key point in the film is when he decides not to tell his sister about the mom's death. This is what guides all his actions in the rest of the film: he just lost his innoncence, lost his childhood, and he refuses to let it happen to his sister. Everything he does, he does it to allow his sister to remain in the garden of Eden that is childhood. But of course, that can only exist if responsible adults take care of everything, and he's not able to do that, so he fails.
The film constantly pushes and pull in that way, with moments of bliss and innocence contrasted with both the overall context and where it actually ends. That is the power of the film: it evokes that longing to stay carefree, but the impossibility to do so.
The novel might be about war, but Takahata made a film about the tragic but necessary loss of innocence that comes with adulthood.
Maybe it's a personal failing of mine, maybe you are all kinder than me, maybe I expect too much from young kids. I don't know. I can sympathize with his attempt to shield his sister (his one redeeming quality), but everything else was revealing not just of his youth and condition, but of his poor character. If it's pseudo-autobiographical, I can understand the author being harsher on himself than he should, but that's about it.
Anyway, it's good to have you around again, Teproc