On August 15th, 1945, WWII officially ended. This illustration reimagines Grave of the Fireflies in a peaceful world, with Seita and Setsuko enjoying the summer.

these days, the internet is filled with people recommending this film to be added in everyone’s watch-list. 1) asian family themed 2) people said it’s tear jerking 3) it’s available at the nearest cinema from home— those three points intrigued me to give the film a toss to try. a moment after i went from the cinema, i know well that people who keep recommend this film is not lying at all.

reviewing a film is never my forte but this film makes me want to write something after watching it. i guess it’s the bond of similarity that this film has to me, especially i’m an asian as well.

i would like to give the five stars to,

the color grading.

i am always a big fan of films that have pretty color grading. htmmbgd has a really pretty, i would even say it’s the prettiest color grading from all the movies that i’ve watched lately. if you look closely toward color grading of each film, sometimes several places have its own colour— so does this film, somehow you can know exactly where the film is located just by looking at its color. i don’t really know how to describe it but when i saw that warm, sunny that sun can sting your skin but someplace is kind of shady.. somehow it really screams asia, and it feels so homey.

also a plus point that it is neither over saturated nor under saturated. it’s unpleasant to watch the artist’s skin look so orange where they are not meant to be a tangerine or look so grey where they are not meant to be someone who hasn’t eaten for a week.

it just.. chef kisses. a lot of scenes that show scenery around the setting and it doesn’t lessen the plot, it makes the audience know about the place without too much movement from the camera.

the sound choice.

it adds drama and spices to the films so much and without them, maybe people can survive this film without crying. it plays an important role as well to the plot since we know that m is known as a scaredy cat and amah’s lullaby is the one who relaxed him down and vice versa (i’m not mentioning that scene okay!)

“you can’t leave this cinema without crying buddies.. it’s okay you can cry, okay cry now” that would depict how the sound’s role in htmmbgd.

the plot.

i won’t say a lot about this but kudos to the filmmaker because it’s really good! the plot doesn’t always go like the audience prediction but somehow it’s relieving.. that’s just the same as how the real world does right?

the highlighted-scene and little details that i care for,

a heads up. i might mention some scenes and maybe some of them are spoilers to everyone who hasn’t watched it. so feel free to stop reading if you feel the spoilers are too heavy for you. i’ll try to lessen it!

amah’s paperbag

while watching the film, i realize that amah never wears a proper ‘bag’. we only see that she always wears paperbag that m always carries for. in my interpretation, it symbolizes the humbleness of amah. we know that amah only sells congee for living— three children and herself. those moneys that she get from is always prioritized for her children needs, not her needs— especially for secondary and the tersier one. if it’s enough to carry, then let it be. but we know, there lies a thing that meant a lot for her family inside it.

m and amah talks when m asked why amah always wanted to have a great land of cemetery for her soon.

i can’t help but cry in silence when this scene appears because it’s just so.. ironic. amah always wants to have her children coming together with her, even when she is passed away so she thinks if her children don’t want come when she is alive— a good cemetery would probably help her desire to have a nice gathering without an argument.

pomegranate and amah’s implicit love.

just like common asian themed poem, there will always be mom cutting fruit to symbolize mother love. but i never read (this could be i am the one who never find it, send me one if you ever read it!) a grandma who is cutting the fruit.

even for her own son, amah forbade him to eat the pomegranate because it was meant for m only. she has kept that pomegranate tree for years, water it everyday, cut the rotten branch, wrap the pomegranate with plastic so the caterpillar won’t eat it– she cares it just like she cares m.

even though amah is grumpy toward m (she knows since day one that m is hiding something from her), she still loves and cares for him.

“sons got the assets and daughter got the cancer”

i want to hug ma so bad. she is the most hardworking one between amah’s children yet she assumes that she never receives amah’s love. it just.. i want to hug her so bad.

and finally, the deeds.

i don’t really know about other families but mostly i reckon that this issue is really controversial. family can separate to each other because of this issue only, they highlight the importance of inherited parent’s wealth. i know it is their right to have it but neglecting the fact that their parents need their children’s time and only wanting their wealth is so sickening.

we know that m cares amah only for her deeds at the first but slowly he knows that it is not always about the deeds, it’s about cherishing the memory with her while it lasts.

it’s bearable that m is mad to know that soei is the one who got the house– i mean who doesn’t mad though if the one who got the house is the one who never helps to care about amah, never have a job and a burden to amah, even steal amah’s money. it happens commonly in asian family, my family as well. sometime i don’t really know what on their mind.

but through this, i realize that how old we are, our parents still look at us as a child. that’s why amah apprehends soei, she’s worried that if she doesn’t give soei her house then he could never solve all his problems.

but that mindset is a fatal flaw as well, by then we can see that soei only rely to his mother. he could never stand on his own. i’m relieved that m scolds for him even though soei is much older than him.

conclusion and rating from me, rai,

it’s worth to watch, at least once in a lifetime. you can always rewatch it though but beware running out of your eyecream because it really makes your eyes swollen right after you leave the cinema.

cherish everyone in your life while it lasts. don’t be so bitter to people, sometimes they need help but they are afraid to reach you out.

I read and watch a lot of stories about idealized love stories and I often enjoy them too! I spent my entire childhood believing that the teenagers who got together in the media I consumed would stay together forever. And then as I got older, I was naturally introduced to more stories about romances that didn’t work out. Still, it’s hard for me to think about those as pragmatic, most of them have this desire for sadness in them. They would make me feel as though the devastation was the point, that the narrative was forcefully bent toward the saddest outcome.

Past Lives doesn’t make me feel this way. Nora doesn’t stop talking to Hae Sung because of an unforeseen tragic circumstance. She makes a choice and goes through with it. Hae Sung puts it best during their conversation at the end of the film. She is the kind of person to leave. And he loves her because she is that kind of person. The “what-if” isn’t in wondering about if circumstances were different. No matter what, she would have chosen her plays over anything else. Her husband even notes that so much of how their relationship happened is because he fit so well into the life she wanted. The whole reason this film is called “Past Lives” is because that’s the only way to ponder about whether Nora and Hae Sung could be together.

Screenplay written by Celine Song

Past Lives (2023) dir. Celine Song

like, I'm sure if you're an Irish or English viewer you have a bit more context for some of the historical jokes and holidays and the like

but plot threads like James' mother, micelle's brother, and the fact that Erin's sister just sort of exists in the background are barely explained but they don't need to be

because the point of the show isn't to espouse upon every little mystery of Derry, each character's inner turmoil, the backstory of every extra- hell, we don't get much of a backstory for the main characters! I don't think we even meet Michelle's father- and we never see the inside of any of the main five's houses besides Erin

this show is slice of life in its purest form

we are dropped into the first day of school in Derry in season one, and we leave on the day of the vote in season 3, when the girls are thinking about going off to college or university, that's it. we're merely a viewer. these characters aren't performing a show for us, we're peeking into their lives.

Derry Girls (2018-2022)

Ken and his discovery of the patriarchy and the way it changes him is the exact same as what happens with adolescent boys. You have these guys who were so close to you, wether through friendship or family become people that they aren’t due to both peer pressure and the desire to hold power. Especially with the whole “podcast bro” thing he had going on in the Ken Dojo Casa House scene, Ken represents all the boys that lean into the patriarchy and change for the worst.

But she shows that beauty doesn't end when you get old. Aging isn't the end of your story, just another phase of it. That old woman is beautiful, and it's good that she knows it.

#needed to hear this

She was so scared of being imperfect and having cellulite and aging and dying, and then she saw how beautiful all of those things could be, and she cried, and I cried.

I was emotional when Barbie told the old woman how beautiful she was, and when Ruth came in and helped her become human.

It was also the fact that America Ferrera was the one having the crisis that caused Barbie to do the same.

Holtveen    -   Siemen Dijkstra, 2005 - 09.

Dutch, b.1968 -