Hoezo in KINO

There have been numerous films about “the bomb” and Japan’s suffering during WWII – Ghibli’s harrowing classic Grave of the Fireflies and the Hiroshima-set Barefoot Gen among them – but few have foregrounded the country’s natural world and its quietly resilient people as powerfully as Sunao Katabuchi’s remarkably understated In This Corner of the World. Drawing on thousands of photographs, journals, diaries, and old maps, Katabuchi and his team spent years developing this adaptation of the manga of the same name. The film’s sunlit, hand-drawn and water-coloured world evokes hope even amid its depictions of lost childhoods, young men getting drafted, women left behind, food rationing, and untimely deaths. Though Katabuchi once served as an assistant under Hayao Miyazaki, his storytelling has more in common with Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata. In This Corner of the World is a poignant reminder of the power of the human spirit in the face of war. Even when surrounded by humanity’s darkest acts, beauty still manages to endure in small, quiet corners.