DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
The most affecting film to deal with the human devastation of World War II isn’t a sweeping, big budget epic. It’s this intimate piece of Japanese animation about a brother and sister orphaned after an Allied firebombing of their hometown takes their mother, and the military their father. Seita, the older of the two, is forced to care for his young sister, Setsuko, after they are first foisted on an opportunistic aunt who can only be bothered to put a roof over their heads because it’ll mean more food for her. When things sour with her, the kids are out on their own and take refuge in an abandoned bomb shelter as they try desperately to find food to survive.
Produced by Studio Ghibli, the animation house best known for films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, the film stands in stark contrast to those Miyazaki fantasies, a sobering look at the effect of the war on the Japanese people. Director Isao Takahata, working from a semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, balances the grim realities with the whimsy of the children, Setsuko particularly, who is often able to find light in the darkest places. All of which will be small consolation when you’re crying your eyes out by the end. And before anyone accuses me of ruining anything here, that’s not really a spoiler. This is World War II we’re talking about here, not Disney. Happy endings were in short supply, and the story actually winds its way gracefully and beautifully to a conclusion more comforting than all that death and destruction should allow.
View the trailer.
Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Freer Gallery‘s Meyer Auditorium. Free.
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Washington Jewish Film Festival
The Washington Jewish Film Festival opens tonight for its 19th run of the best in Jewish filmmaking from around the world. Tonight’s opener, Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger, is an Australian production about a young girl looking to use her bat mitzvah not only as her entrance into adulthood, but a chance to completely reinvent herself and her world. Toni Collette stars. From there, the festival runs through a program of nearly 60 features from all over the globe, covering a diverse range of stories that share this one common thread.
Opens tonight and runs through December 14 at seven venues around town. See the schedule for full details.
