Diane L. Thompson

As a boomer reared on the John Wayne version of the war, I found this movie amazing for it's ability to gently take us into the everyday lives of a Japanese family in the time before and during WWII. We grew so close to these people that as the date of the Hiroshima bomb grew closer, our tensions increased, watching, waiting, hurting for what we knew was in store. All of us are at the mercy of our governments, as witnessed by what is occurring now in the US. We are powerless to stop it or even change the direction. We can only believe what we are told and go on with our lives. In 'This Corner of the World,' people went on living their lives with only peripheral mention of the war. The artwork was beautiful, the English voice actors were true to their characters, the time was rendered without overt sentiment yet made you yearn for what they had or didn't have as the case may be. What I hadn't realized before this was how many times Japan was bombed before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki strikes. It looked brutal. It was war but seen from a perspective of everyday ordinary people, a perspective we are not usually allowed. I think every American should see this film. Yes, we did not start the war. Japan was the aggressor and they were brutal and we fought them and we won and I am glad. I simply think we can all learn from a few hours spent looking at things from the other side.