Wolf Children was Amazing

Just came back from watching this. With this being the latest work of the guy who did Summer Wars, I went with fairly lofty expectations – and found my expectations exceeded. I’m a little afraid of over-hyping it from just a single watch through (and just some hours ago), but Wolf Children was beautiful, and not so much in audio/visual terms (though the soundtrack was fantastic), but more so in the sheer strength of its storytelling. Like Summer Wars, the focus of the film is very familial, very human, and the breathless intimacy of the storytelling made every twist and turn throughout the film intensely heartfelt. It created a wonderful, heady perspective of the wide, breathing enormity of the world around and beyond us without missing a beat in portraying the hardships and triumphs and travails of our own meandering path through it. Like Summer wars it is a very human story, and it was just wonderful.

Also, and I cannot help but add, don’t listen to Kotaku’s review about the end. I think it’s missing a point or two about the kind of story Wolf Children is trying to tell. In my opinion the conventional structure of having a massive buildup into a palpable climax right before the end is a tired tradition that, while often effective, needs to be departed from every now and then, and Wolf Children I think handled its own method of curtain-down very gracefully. The film began at the beginning and ended at the end of a familial cycle, and was thus, in my opinion, as whole and complete as it can be – for the cycle never ends, and the exact point of entry and departure of this story I think alludes to that. The stories of the children’s future beyond the end will be the tale of another generation.

I think that’s all I’m going to say for now. A proper treatment of the show must necessarily wait for DVD/Blurays to get out so I can watch it a few more times, and take screenshots and such. Of course, seeing as how I never ended up writing about Summer Wars, I won’t guarantee I’ll make a post for this one too.

By the way, this is also a public service announcement for folks living in Singapore. This is showing RIGHT NOW. If you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favor, and go grab yourself a ticket now.