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Brave Story (Director: Kôichi Chigira, Japan, 2006): Wataru is a normal eleven-year-old boy. When Ashikawa, the new kid at school, tells him about a doorway to a magical world where wishes are granted, he’s curious. Then his father tells him he’s leaving the family, and a few days later, his mother collapses and has to be rushed to hospital. With his family coming apart, Wataru finds his way to the portal, hoping to restore his family to the way it used to be.
What starts off as a fairly standard “quest” film becomes much deeper as the story unfolds. Wataru discovers that Ashikawa is also in the magical world called Vision and that both of them are searching for five gemstones which will allow them to meet the Goddess of Fortune, who will grant only one wish. On his journey, he makes friends and acquires a sort of gang. When he finds out that Ashikawa is destroying parts of the world and causing the deaths of creatures in his single-minded pursuit of the gemstones, Wataru begins to re-evaluate how important his wish is.
By the time the two friends end up confronting each other, Wataru has changed. His experience in the world of Vision has helped him to see that there are more important things than self-interest. He decides to use his wish another way. But first, he has to stop Ashikawa from destroying the world completely. I liked the implication that Ashikawa was treating the magical world much like a game, and that he didn’t care about any of the creatures in it.
Some very big themes are addressed in a film aimed at such a young audience, and it was strangely moving in one scene to watch Wataru literally “battle” another version of himself who wanted only to have his family back. I was touched by the way he was able to integrate all of his anger, sadness, selfishness, bitterness, and as he puts it, immaturity into the more heroic person he’s been while on his quest. Though the film was unabashedly sentimental, it certainly didn’t seem shallow.
I’m always curious about the way Japanese films about children always feature missing parents. There were thematic elements shared with films like My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, and I suppose the lesson is that we only really grow up when our parents aren’t there to take care of us.
Technically, the film was beautiful to look at. There were some anime staples, and also some visual borrowings from the Miyazaki films, but there was also some really eye-popping use of CGI blended with the traditional two-dimensional animation.
My only real criticism is that the linear quest structure of the narrative made the film run about 15 minutes too long. At 111 minutes, I think it’s pushing the limit, especially for younger viewers. That being said, I really thought the theme was an important one, and not just for children. Life is full of sadness as well as happiness. Instead of trying to change things that are out of our control, we need to accept our lives and create our own destinies.
Trailer at Apple Japan site
(8/10)
Tagged as:
anime,
children,
japan
Its full name is Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, but around here we just call it Sprockets (or “Shprockets” if we’re feeling a bit Teutonic). Now entering its tenth year, this family-focused festival is screening 98 films from 28 countries from April 13-22, 2007 at several venues around the city. For the first time, and despite the fact that we have no kids, my wife and I will be seeing a couple of films. On Saturday April 14th, we’ll see:
We were very careful to choose screenings where the subtitles are NOT read aloud, since our experience with this at TIFF last year was very distracting. Sprockets reminds us that there is a whole world of film out there that rarely sees theatrical distribution in North America. If you have kids, why not introduce them to something outside the Hollywood mainstream early in their lives? It will open up the whole world to them.
Tagged as:
children
Mysterious Skin (Director: Gregg Araki, USA, 2004): Two boys share a dark secret until their paths cross again ten years later. If it sounds a bit melodramatic, well, it might be, except that the two boys smother their pain in different ways. Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a breakout performance) remembers everything about the summer when he was eight with a sort of romantic nostalgia. He loved the attention his baseball coach lavished on him, even all the special games they played when they were alone. He has grown into a sullen gay hustler who doesn’t let anyone get close to him emotionally. Brian (Brady Corbet) doesn’t remember the night where he “lost five hours,” and suffers nightmares, blackouts and nosebleeds for years. Over time, he becomes convinced that he was abducted by aliens. Since we know Neil’s story already, we know the truth is much more prosaic. This is a film that absolutely requires stellar performances from these two actors and they deliver.
Entwining Neil’s vivid remembrances with Brian’s efforts to remember any shred of detail gives the film an interesting structure, and the fact that the two boys don’t meet again until the very end of the film gives the ending a real emotional punch. Neil’s strange and sad nostalgia at the beginning about the events that happened to them fails by the end to hide the real damage that both boys have suffered. The ending does leave us with a kernel of hope, although there is a bit of voiceover that seems to come out of nowhere. The fact that the film is based on a novel by Scott Heim probably has something to do with the complicated multiple-flashback structure, and I think the screenplay’s attempt to simplify it shows a few seams in places.
Overall, though, the lead performances carry us over any bumps and make this an experience both disturbing and moving.
P.S. The “present-day” in the film is 1991, and so the soundtrack features a lot of great bands from the “Shoegaze” era: Slowdive, Curve, Ride, and the Cocteau Twins.
(8/10)
Tagged as:
adolescence,
children,
DVD,
homosexuality
The World According To Sesame Street (USA, 2005, Director: Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins, 105 minutes): Sesame Street has proved to be a very successful American export, now being seen in more than 120 countries. This film looks at the very unique process of establishing co-productions with local educators, producers and puppeteers, focussing on two challenging locations: Kosovo and Bangladesh.
By far the most time is spent on the Bangladeshi production, and the real star of the film is Sesame Workshop producer Nadia Zylstra, who began her job three weeks before filming began. We follow this very excitable South African woman as she begins the process of defining what the program will look like in Bangladesh. The film shows us the nuts and bolts of how the production comes together, and some of the challenges involved when dealing with local opposition and delays.
I enjoyed the film and found it very inspiring, but I think it missed a chance to dig a bit deeper into the issue of what some audience members called “cultural imperialism.” Though they’re very careful to “partner” with local people, the Sesame Street organization is still American and fuelled by American values and definitions of success. Some of the questions surrounding the “export” of an American model would have been very interesting to explore.
Reading his review after I wrote mine, I discovered that The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell agrees with me.
(8/10)
NOW Toronto: NNNN (out of 5) (review)
EYE Weekly: *** (out of 5) (review)
Tagged as:
children,
Documentaries,
globalization,
Hot Docs,
Television
Lost Children (Germany/Uganda, 2005, Directors: Ali Samadi Ahadi, Oliver Stoltz, 98 minutes): All three of the films I saw today were about “children in peril” but none were more horrifying than this one. Northern Uganda has been caught up in civil war for almost twenty years. The rebels of the “Lord’s Resistance Army” make it their primary tactic to kidnap children from local villages, forcing them to fight in their army. Children as young as 8 are taught to kill with guns and knives, and those who don’t share in the atrocities are killed themselves, often by other conscripted children.
Catholic relief agency Caritas is running a reintegration centre for those children who manage to escape the rebel army. It is a formidable challenge. Often the children have physical injuries, either sustained in battle or in their harrowing escapes. The mental damage is much harder to repair. They often have nightmares, and are terrified of being reabducted. Their families are suspicious of them, and are also afraid of being targetted again by the rebels. In these circumstances, the social workers and doctors at the centre have their hands full.
We meet Jennifer, 14, who spent five years with the Lord’s Resistance Army, fighting government troops and terrorizing civilians, all the while being raped regularly as a commander’s concubine. And Opio, just 8 years old, describing how he bashed in a man’s skull with a rifle butt. Then there is sensitive Kelama, 13, who was forced to kill a woman in front of her child and who now can’t stop dreaming about her. All these children have a long road ahead of them, first reintegrating with their families and communities, and then hoping that the rebels don’t return for them.
It’s difficult to “rate” films like this, because they don’t really function as pieces of art. Instead, they fulfill another aspect of the documentary’s role, that of bearing witness. In that sense, this film is a clear-eyed look at some of the most horrifying crimes against children ever perpetrated. By making children do their killing for them, the so-called “Lord’s Resistance Army” have killed the childhoods of these children. As they piece together the shreds of their humanity, they are no longer children. What they will become is a mystery.
Information on helping the children here.
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
(9/10)
Tagged as:
children,
Documentaries,
germany,
Hot Docs,
uganda
