Live action version (or is that revision?) of a novel that was turned into one of the greatest animated films (and possibly any sort of film) ever made. The original is one of the most heartbreaking touching films I've ever seen. the original is a masterpiece. This new version is considerably less.
The film is set in Japan in the closing days of the Second World War where a teenage boy and his his young sister must navigate the war ravaged country after their mother is killed in a bombing raid and their father is off fighting the war. Its based on a semi autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The thought of a live action version of the classic story seemed to me to be a natural idea. Unfortunately hampered by what seems to be a limited budget and rewriting (or perhaps its too close to the novel?) of the story this version is a major misfire.
A huge problem with the film is that it is largely set bound there is no sense of being really in a bombed out Japan. We never really go many places that give us a sense of a country being bombed, much less fire bombed (the film is set in Kobe after the fire bombing but it seems like its not a city, town or village nor anything that was fire bombed). Much of the story takes place in and a round the country home of a woman the pair goes to stay with on the instructions of their dead mother. What was a small human story told on a large canvas is now a small human story told on a small one. It all feels like sets with the few scenes of devastation obvious matte paintings. It might have worked had the film not felt like a TV movie of the week, but it never really comes off. There simply is no sense of a war being raged anywhere except in the most fleeting of moments.
It doesn't help that the lead actor isn't very good. He seems too rigid and with of his actions being thought out or told to him. Its a complete change from the boy we see in the "making of" documentary on the DVD. Watch his reaction when he is told his mother has died. there is not life in what he does just motion by rote.
I have to point out that I don't really know the source novel only the animated film that was made from it. My reaction to this film is tied to my feelings for the earlier film. My understanding is that the earlier film is close to the book, with only the final image deviating from the novel. To that end its probably not really fair to complain about changes to the story, but I'm going to do so in a limited way. Much of the original story seems to have been jettisoned. Most of the scenes that I remember from the original are gone. However most serious is the change to the ending...its neither touching nor crushing....in its twisted sort of way its happy...but happy in the wrong sort of way...where the original was an end to the pain, this is something else entirely.
I wouldn't care if the film worked on its own terms but it doesn't, I've looked at the film two and a half times now and even watching it for itself the film doesn't amount to much because of its lack of scope and sense of having been done better before (and I don't mean the earlier film since this film feels nothing like the animated film, which is good because its easy to divorce yourself from the earlier tale and take it for itself on a second viewing. But the problem is that in revising the story and making it its own creation they've made it like so many other war is hell for civilian films that all power is lost and it doesn't stand out at all. How many films does this look like? Too many.
I'm disappointed.
Its a misfire. Its not worth the effort to run down.
The film is set in Japan in the closing days of the Second World War where a teenage boy and his his young sister must navigate the war ravaged country after their mother is killed in a bombing raid and their father is off fighting the war. Its based on a semi autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The thought of a live action version of the classic story seemed to me to be a natural idea. Unfortunately hampered by what seems to be a limited budget and rewriting (or perhaps its too close to the novel?) of the story this version is a major misfire.
A huge problem with the film is that it is largely set bound there is no sense of being really in a bombed out Japan. We never really go many places that give us a sense of a country being bombed, much less fire bombed (the film is set in Kobe after the fire bombing but it seems like its not a city, town or village nor anything that was fire bombed). Much of the story takes place in and a round the country home of a woman the pair goes to stay with on the instructions of their dead mother. What was a small human story told on a large canvas is now a small human story told on a small one. It all feels like sets with the few scenes of devastation obvious matte paintings. It might have worked had the film not felt like a TV movie of the week, but it never really comes off. There simply is no sense of a war being raged anywhere except in the most fleeting of moments.
It doesn't help that the lead actor isn't very good. He seems too rigid and with of his actions being thought out or told to him. Its a complete change from the boy we see in the "making of" documentary on the DVD. Watch his reaction when he is told his mother has died. there is not life in what he does just motion by rote.
I have to point out that I don't really know the source novel only the animated film that was made from it. My reaction to this film is tied to my feelings for the earlier film. My understanding is that the earlier film is close to the book, with only the final image deviating from the novel. To that end its probably not really fair to complain about changes to the story, but I'm going to do so in a limited way. Much of the original story seems to have been jettisoned. Most of the scenes that I remember from the original are gone. However most serious is the change to the ending...its neither touching nor crushing....in its twisted sort of way its happy...but happy in the wrong sort of way...where the original was an end to the pain, this is something else entirely.
I wouldn't care if the film worked on its own terms but it doesn't, I've looked at the film two and a half times now and even watching it for itself the film doesn't amount to much because of its lack of scope and sense of having been done better before (and I don't mean the earlier film since this film feels nothing like the animated film, which is good because its easy to divorce yourself from the earlier tale and take it for itself on a second viewing. But the problem is that in revising the story and making it its own creation they've made it like so many other war is hell for civilian films that all power is lost and it doesn't stand out at all. How many films does this look like? Too many.
I'm disappointed.
Its a misfire. Its not worth the effort to run down.