Review of Giovanni’s Island (2014)
Seen in 2015.
Par for the course in the “Japanese children suffer due to enemy actions in WW2” genre. Highly effective as a sentimental tragedy, certainly if you’re familiar with Miyazawa’s story and are prepared to overlook an unlikely progression of tuberculosis. The Lupin-like Hideo adds a lot of liveliness, some of the scenes of children at play are brilliantly done, and I very much appreciate the presence of the poor Korean woman who gets treated worse than the Japanese—who probably treated her worse still—and says so.