In payback to be enjoying the discussions in the Nimona thread, I wanted to give some recommendations back to this group and keep it active.
I’d been wanting to see some movies showing life for non-combatants during war, and I found 2 I really enjoyed. Both are somewhat tough to watch, but very touching stories in a heartbreaking way. I don’t watch war movies for the combat so much, I enjoy ones that show the humanity of the people involved. Good or evil, it is all done by regular people and I feel it’s important to remember that.
THIS IS IS NO WAY ME SUPPORTING OR CONDEMNING EITHER SIDE!!! I watched these as stories from the POV telling them, that’s all, no politics of mine involved or intended, I’m just sharing fictional stories of fictional characters that I have watched. One is about prisoners, the other about school age girls. Neither are groups involved in combat.
If you want to discuss related morality in this thread, I’m all for it if it stays civil and not personal. I think both movies present many things that should be thought about and discussed in a constructive way. With that said, here’s the movies.
Land of Mine Danish army demands German POWs remove the 2 million landmines left buried on the coast. The story follows the squad commander training and supervising a group of very young POWs considered “disposable”. I thought it was intense every time they were in the beach, and there is great character development as everyone gets to know each other and as you learn if their individual dreams and fears.
Flowers of War Big budget movie from China, starring Christian Bale as a priest running a girls school in Nanking. A group of girls from the red light district tagged refuge in the school. The groups initially dislike each other, but through many dangerous situations, they see they are not as different as they thought. Many scenes of bravery and sacrifice. Very character driven, and I was very invested in what would happen to them.
If you watch this one, I really recommend you follow up reading up on Minnie Vautrin, whom the Christian Bale character somewhat fills in for. She was an American missionary in China credited for saving 10,000 schoolgirls in Nanking. A very touching and sad story in itself.
Grave of the Fireflies was a pretty good movie about children in Japan during WWII. I’m sure most people have heard of it, but it was recommended about a year or two ago, and it was much better than I was expecting.
That is definitely in the same category. I watched that probably close to 20 years ago now, and I still can picture some of those scenes.
For similar animated movies, I recently watched In This Corner of the World, which takes place in a town near Hiroshima. Then there is also the British animation When the Wind Blows. That follows an old couple post fictional Soviet nuclear war and deals with attempting to survive fallout. Less graphic and more voice-over type drama iirc, it’s been a long time since I saw that one, but again I clearly remember certain parts.