Beyond "Oppenheimer": An Alternative Watchlist

by Cláudio Alves

HANAGATAMI (2017) Nobuhiko Obayashi

On August 6th, 1945, the atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, hit the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9th, a second device, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. Between those immediately killed in the American attack and the thousands who would perish in the subsequent months, 129,000-226,000 lives were lost, most civilian. Japan had been effectively defeated before the nuclear assault, but the nation's surrender to Allied Forces came on August 15th. According to historians over the decades and high-ranking military of the time, the US needn't have perpetrated such horrors.

And yet, for some, the idea of the bombings as a necessary evil persists. Considering this, one shouldn't be shocked that some viewers came out of Christopher Nolan's latest, grumbling it hadn't done enough to question the narrative. A common complaint is that Oppenheimer doesn't show the effects of the bombings, looking away like its titular character when confronted by such images. But would those images have fit the picture's intentions? Isn't the inability to consider consequences beyond abstraction one of the narrative's central tenets? 

As one marks these days of remembrance, it may be more productive to look beyond Oppenheimer and consider Japan's perspective. Perhaps, it's not that Nolan pulled his punches, but that they weren't his to throw…

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The 2017 Animated Contenders: "In This Corner of the World"

by Tim Brayton

Of the 26 animated features submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science for Oscar consideration last month, a respectable five – just the thinnest hair under 20% - came from Japan. Ignoring Oscar eligibility, and throwing Your Name. on the pile (it was a 2016 Oscar hopeful but its commercial U.S. release came this spring), and 2017 has been a pretty fine year for anime in the United States.

Out of all those films, I humbly submit that the best one is In This Corner of the World, director Sunao Katabuchi's adaptation of a 2007-'09 manga series by Fumiyo Kōno. It's actually the story's second cinematic incarnation: in 2011, it was adapted in live-action. I haven't seen that film, but even so, I cannot fathom how it could be anything but a pale echo of the Katabuchi film: In This Corner of the World is an extraordinary triumph of animation as a storytelling vehicle. And this is no less true just because it's telling a mostly realistic story that doesn't "need" to be animated...

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