Review XXXIX - Barefoot Gen

Review XXXIX
Barefoot Gen (1983)

When I first read about Masaki Mori's はだしのゲン Hadashi no Gen, known as Barefoot Gen in English, I knew I had to watch it. While I thought about waiting to watch it as I'm on my journey to the Oscars, I knew I'd forget about it, so I forced myself to watch the dubbed version online.

The film starts with the introduction of a young boy, Gen Nakaoka, a few days before the bombing of Hiroshima (the movie explains this in great detail, so if you don't know what it is, I don't need to explain it). He has a younger brother, Shinji, an older sister, Eiko, a father, Daikichi, and a mother, Kimie, who is also pregnant. The war is causing the family great stress with the limits put on food and the constant warnings of planes flying overhead. However, Gen and Shinji try and make the best of the situation while trying to help their mother with her pregnancy. On August 6th, a single B-29 aircraft, drops "Little Boy", an atomic bomb, on Hiroshima, and the rest of the story follows Gen and his family trying to make ends meet amidst the complete destruction of Hiroshima.

Barefoot Gen is based on a manga series written by Nakazawa Keiji. The series is based on his own personal experience as he was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. He was six years old at the time. I knew the basis of the plot going in, but I didn't really expect what I got. It starts off as such a heart-felt story focusing on these two young boys. They seem so optimistic about life, especially given the circumstance, when suddenly a bomb is dropped on the city they live in simply because they were Japanese. I really don't want to give anything away, but I have to discuss it, so if you don't want any type of spoiler in relation to how the film portrays the situation, stop reading this paragraph from here on out. Alright, let's go then. The film suddenly becomes so graphic. I mean, obviously I have seen worse, but as soon as the bomb is dropped, we get depictions of people being burned alive. Little children, babies, mothers, fathers, men, women, they all burn and get shards of shrapnel flying into them. Considering we establish such a hopeful scene of this family, when you get this, it's such a blow. It's not just the bomb falls and Gen wakes up and everything is destroyed. No, we get the process of this bomb. We even have the narrator explaining the situation beforehand and afterward, which I thought was very helpful. However, even though this process is disturbing, the part that bothered me the most is when you hear the man say, "Drop the bomb." Obviously there was such a command, but it's so chilling to imagine that someone could actually drop this bomb, the first atomic bomb ever used in war, and the second last to ever be used in war. An atomic bomb doesn't just destroy a city, but it leaves lingering dangerous effects. People who survived thought they were fine, but no, they were affected by radiation and the black rain (fallout), as well as those who came to help out afterward. The movie shows you how people, people who didn't even ncessarily follow the government's decision to stay at war, suffered for long periods of time because they lacked basic necessities. It doesn't matter that this film is animated - it shows a reality that I was never exposed to, and for that reason, I highly recommend the film. It doesn't matter who you thought was right or wrong in World War II. Barefoot Gen, while it is biased, shows you the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, and I think it was well done.

I didn't in particularly mind the dubbed version, but I think a subbed version would have been much better given that the voice actors in the dubbed version seemed a little weird sometimes. Nonetheless, I'd give the film eight point two stars on ten with a high recommendation, not just because it was good, but because it was very informative and deserves to be viewed to see just how destructive war can be.

Pirate Bay torrent (apparently good enough quality with English subtitles)