roundtablet

I think what describes "In this corner of the world" best is: being in the eye of the storm. It is somewhat calm and relaxing, has many slice of life moments and the main protagonist Suzu tries to be happy and joyful despite her situation, but there is the anticipation of the worst, yet to come. There are many undertones in this movies and things unspoken, things that are only slightly hinted at, things that later forgotten, because it would be too cruel to be reminded of them, to be reminded what has been lost and what could have been. The movie reaches deep into the dark abyss containing the horrors of war, at least if you catch up to its drift, while still having heart felt moments giving a tiny glimpse of hope and joy. I think it's the best anti-war movie I have watched in a long time.

As I eluded before, we follow Suzu a young girl from Hiroshima (speaking of anticipation) who is being married off to a family of a nearby town and has to get used to her new surroundings. She seems to always has her head in the clouds and keeps her thoughts to herself. She is not good at what she is expected to do, that is do the household, but she likes to draw. She always seems joyful and happy, or at least she tries to be. I really like Suzu, you can tell that she doesn't tell you everything she thinks and wants and the more suffering she has to endure the more you can peek behind the facades , she just feels so genuine and real, while at the same time unique and interesting.

All the other characters, while maybe not being as deeply developed as Suzu, still feel refreshing and real. Most of them are not stereotypes as you often see in war dramas. They feel like real people with their own struggles, motivations, regrets and growth, while at the same time also not being totally open to read.

Another point I think it sets it apart from other war movies is its unpredictability. While in other war dramas you usually know what you will get, how the story progression will likely be and so forth, however in "In this corner of the world" many things happen so suddenly without foreshadowing. It is reminiscent of the abruptness of war.

The art style and sound track, as well as voice acting are phenomenal in my opinion, both in the Japanese and English dub. The art style is simplistic and somewhat childish and it gives the movie a unique charm, while having many artistically beautiful and interesting moments, such as depicting plane gun shots as blobs of paint from a brush, as seen through Suzus eyes as an artist.

Overall this movie is full of heart-warming scenes that may make you giggle, but also depressing scenes that make you feel empty inside. It's a roller-coaster of emotions and you have to hold on tight, otherwise you will be thrown off and realise that all has been for none. As the character in this story must realize, that all their suffering has been for none, even if Japan would have won. Such is the nature of war. Because only a fool would think that losing your loved ones could be justified with anything.

The HBO miniseries Chernobyl presents an indulging tale of drama and horror. The first episode (of five in total) especially gripped me with its consistently building tension. The episodes were well paced, the acting phenomenal and the cinematography stunning. So overall I can only recommend it to everyone. It was long since I enjoyed watching a series as much as I liked watching Chernobyl. And it led me to investigate more about the accident and its fallout.

Doing so however led me to discover that the miniseries, in retrospect, has a huge amount of fearmongering in it. This reaches from exaggerations to blatant misinformation about the situation. Now normally if a show is not as accurate, it wouldn't be a big deal. A short version of history that also wants to be compelling is bound to bend the truth at least a little here and there. You know, the cost of truthfulness have to be paid in order to have a narratively cohesive work of art that tries to capture people and not bore them to death. Normally everyone understands that, I think, however the HBO's miniseries Chernobyl has such a high production value and paid a lot of attention to detail many people believe that the miniseries presents a well-informed unbiased view of the events, which in fact it does not. There are many things wrong in this series which all seem to go into the direction of making the disaster and nuclear energy look worse (so it doesnt just randomly gets things wrong here or there but it seems more deliberate), which lead to people being misinformed about radiation and Chernobyl, which consequently can lead to many people making bad decisions for their lives and others.

These claims are for example: misreporting the actual death counts, stating unverified stories as fact (the bridge of death), stating physically impossible speculation as fact (the molten core thermos nuclear explosion), exaggerating the effects radiation has on the human body, misinformation about ARS( these kinds of untruths of unborn babies getting "infected" actually led to approx. 1 million unnecessary abortion in Europe after the Chernobyl accident and many children without parents suffering from ARS were rejected by society because people believed that they could "spread" their illness), not actually understanding how the nuclear reactor of Chernobyl works (their whole demonstration with the control rods and the reason they think the control rods are designed like that is utterly uninformed) and basically not giving any perspective of the situation but only focusing on the individuals that suffers (would you have guessed that 106 out of 134 first responders who got acute radiation sickness (ARS) survived it and some are still living to this day?).

As you can see, some of the believes that the HBO miniseries teaches can be quite harmful and are solely based on unscientific fear about radiation and nuclear power. Not to mention that the rejection of nuclear power today (which is one of the cleanest, safest, cheapest and best energy sources) and the consequent use of coal and gas, prolongs the reduction of carbon gases and will lead to a larger fallout of global warming, which is part due to propaganda pieces such as this.

So in conclusion the HBO Chernobyl series is a masterpiece of film but a horrifying propaganda piece which probably leads to opinions and believes that hurt people much more than the actually Chernobyl disaster ever could.

1917 is overall a very generic war movie. The only redeeming quality is the "all in one shot" thing, which at times was able to build up tension and make for an interesting and unique shot composition. I would say that the first half of the movie uses it to its advantage while after a certain point of the movie everything went downhill, with lots of cheesy moments, plot conveniences, weird character choices and overall not being able to keep up the tension. But the second half at least tried hard with having some nice shots and sets.

The movie also feels more like a typical action flick, instead of a proper portrayal of WW1. I mean it does a better job than ridiculous movies such as "Hacksaw ridge" or "saving private ryan" do with WW2, but it has this typical feeling of "character making it out against all odds" and if someone dies it must be an elaborate set piece, which feels just so unlike real WW1, where the horror was rather the unseen enemy, the mustard gas, the constant artillery shots, the rats keeping you awake at night. It doesn't have this realistic feeling of WW1 like "All quiet on the western front" or maybe "Paths of Glory" has. It also doesn't help that a year earlier the very nice documentary "They shall not grow old" came out which gives a by far better vision of WW1 than this movie could ever do.

I am also not a fan of the idea of trying to make a movie in only 1 shot. I didn't like it in "Birdman" and I didn't like it in any movie I have seen it in since. There is a reason movies have cuts in it and its not only a technical one. A story normally needs things like: different sets, time in between scenes, scenes following each other with vastly different tones to build or reduce tension, etc. Ofc you could make a movie that still is enjoyable to watch even if it has only 1 shot, but is it difficult to achieve? Yes. A rather character driven story like "Birdman" only suffered from it and the idea of everything being one shot was not an artistic vision benefiting the movie, it was basically the gimmick that tried to sell tickets. The idea of one shot was utterly pointless and made the movie even more boring. "1917" however seems to be the best example of a movie that tried to do the "one shot" thing, since it actually achieved something with it. Like I said before it did a decent job of creating tension in the first half. The problem is 1917 would have been better if it had a few cuts in between some long shots, but it seems even more in this movie that the " one shot" gimmick was heavily used to promote the movie rather than being a much needed addition to the film. Oh and just to point it out, the advertisement of just being in one shot was also a lie because it cut to black half way through the movie.

So in conclusion the movie has a pretty interesting opening sequence and later some great sets, but story wise its boils down to a generic war drama which cant keep up the tension all the way through to the end. It involves many cheesy moments and overall nothing really challenging or anything to wrap your head around. Its entertaining though, and at times very visually pleasing.