In This Corner of the World
Directed by Sunao Katabuchi
Written by Sunao Katabuchi & Chie Uratani
Based on In This Corner of the World by Fumiyo Kōno
Produced by Masao Maruyama & Taro Maki
Starring Rena Nōnen, Yoshimasa Hosoya, Natsuki Inaba, Minori Omi, Daisuke Ono, Megumi Han, Shigeru Ushiyama, Mayumi Shintani, Nanase Iwai, Tengai Shibuya III
Cinematography Yūya Kumazawa
Edited by Kashiko Kimura
Music by Kotringo
Production company MAPPA
You will watch this beautifully drawn and animated 2016 feature with a mounting sense of dread. It is about a girl who becomes a young woman and arranged-marriage wife in the town of Eba and the City of Kube, in war-time Japan. It covers from the mid thirties through 1945, and both municipalities are near the city of Hiroshima.
The central character is Suzu (Nōnen) who is a shy, good-hearted girl, small in stature even by pre-war Japanese standards, but gifted with an extraordinary drawing talent. In a glimpse of the wonder and beauty of the film to come, she deftly draws the wind-whipped ocean bay by Eba, drawing the whitecaps as white rabbits bounding over the swells. It’s part of a lyrical emotional poetry that suffuses the entire film.
Her marriage, against expectations, is one of love and warmth, with an attentive and sensitive husband, and a kind and generous mother in law. It reasonable to expect arranged marriages to be nightmares because so many were, but it doesn’t fit this narrative.
Slowly, the war encroaches on the lives of the family. At first, it’s an adventure, with children delightedly learning the classes and names of the ships out in the nearby naval port. It’s an adventure, and victory is ensured for the young men sent to defend the empire from the evil west.
But one day Suzu is innocently sketching the ships and is accosted by two military police who threaten to arrest her on suspected espionage. It’s a turning point in the tale. From there on the war becomes a struggle for food, and safety, and shelter.
And of course, looming over the story is Hiroshima. In July of 1945, Americans do an incendiary bombing of Kube, leveling much of the city. For two weeks after, they do an unending series of bombing raids, four or five a day, mostly at night, making sleep or what remained of ordinary life impossible. Suzu is urged by friends and family to move to the relative safety of Hiroshima. She is about to, but is injured by a delayed bomb explosion.
The morning of August 6th, Kube residents saw an unbelievably bright flash in the direction of the main city, followed about thirty seconds later by what felt like a 4.0 earthquake.
The story isn’t as unremittingly bleak as Grave of the Fireflies or the British When the Wind Blows, but it does have privation and loss, and shows the indomitable spirit of humanity. While a work of fiction, the storyline is based deeply in historical accuracy, a terrible time for an ancient and often noble civilization.
Now on Netflix
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