Just from that opening scene, the boy narrating his death; that immediately set the tone and I could feel how sad this movie was going to be.
And throughout the journey, the animation was just amazing. The attention to detail in the realistic portrayal of fabric, of hair, of an action that was so simple and mundane; but it added with such great impact to the realism of the scene.
The story was just a heartbreak through and through. To witness that love between the siblings, it was the sweetest but also suffocating at the same time. The two leads lend themselves to a great case for character study, because it was exactly that love that led to how the two characters turned out in the end.
The middle act was a little too slow. Scenes were dragged out. The extreme cutness of the sister was emphasised so that we would fall in love with her, I thought this was a cheap move and saw it right from the start (to be fair, this movie came out in 1988).
Director Isao Takahata really captured the sadness of the story, and that sadness was so strong that it did not fully hit me until the next day as I laid awake at dawn and couldn't help myself but immerse in that sadness all over again. And it was not because of how good the story was; but because of how sad the whole situation was. On one hand I blamed the brother for not pulling his weight but played only the waiting game. On the other, the bravery displayed even if it crossed the line of stupidity was so commendable.
It would be too difficult to watch this movie again, but then again, it is also because it really had no strong rewatchable value to it. To sit through this sadness would be stupidity on my part.
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