O Ferrão da Morte

This was selected as the Japanese entry for the, Best Foreign Language Film, at the 63rd Academy Award, but was not accepted as a nominee. I'm not surprised. This looked rather good and the children are splendid but throughout, even from the start, this is terribly unpleasant. Both the couple are rather sad and maybe going mad and there are other things that are difficult to understand. The film is set just after the 2nd World War and I imagine that the Japanese took this rather badly and it was also problematic to get a divorce. There weren't any funny moments although it is a bit odd when the husband suddenly decides to hang himself, the wife tries to stop him and then they both try at the same time and fail. I thought it might be some slapstick but early on he had said he had been a kamikaze pilot so it must have just been more of those terrible moments. It's maybe too subtle for us to comprehend.