"Bridge to Terabithia" PARENTAL WARNING! SPOILERS!

Personal Viewing | Friday February 16, 2007 | Milwaukee_Guy

[Jalapeno]

I haven't seen the Disney version yet, but I assumed they'd toned the emphasis on her death down a bit. If they haven't, I consider it a good thing....Is it a sad story? Yes, but the overall theme of the book is a positive one, reminding us that something as simple as friendship can be a powerful force and change lives. It's a story about growing up and facing a tragedy, and realizing the good that comes of all our lives.

Film is very much in line with this.

[johnmark7]

O Lord, my wife and I watched Grave of the Fireflies. We still talk about never wanting to see that movie or any like it ever again.

What a perfect example of a culture that has no real hope at its core because it has nothing Judeo-Christian about it. Japanese and Chinese movies reflect a hopelessness and sense of ultimate futility that is unbearable.

[Scotswife]

I remember being in elementary school and signing this book out from the school library.
I have forgotten the details of the plot - but I vividly remember how SAD this book made me.
When I saw the title of this movie I thought to myself "somebody dies -and it made me cry alot"

[Old Professer]

Rod Serling at least let them jump back into the pool to escape.

[mware]

I recall they had the same problem with Charles Laughton's only movie he ever directed,Night of the Hunter"

The finally decided to put it as a double feature for kids.

Many a child had nightmares after that movie.

[js1138]

...and thought Disney would edit that sad part from the film.That would make a rather short and pointless movie.

[JenB]

Not all Japanese movies are anything like that! Grave of the Fireflies has a specific purpose and the bleak hopelessness is required for that story. Watch "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds" sometime. Or "Kiki's Delivery Service" or "Laputa" or anything else Studio Ghibli puts out.

I'm no cultural relativist but modern Japanese culture is no more hopeless or depressing than modern American culture. Just weirder.

[johnmark7]

Of course, not all Japanese movies are about hopelessness, but the cultural situation for Japanese and Chinese is rather bleak like German culture.

Their drama has at its base a powerful sense of futility, and the proposed solution is that one simply endures and suffers because death is thought to be something worse.

It is only in strongly Christian societies that hope is the foundation of human life. Even Jewish life, while not hopeless, tends to see life as more trial than joy. All other religions end in fatalism.

[JenB]

I'm willing to bet I've watched a lot more Japanese movies and tv shows than you and honestly the idea that "life is just something to endure" is no more true of them than of us. I understand what you're saying, that without a proper hope based in Christianity things are empty, but as far as movies or things go, it's pretty much the same, culture to culture.

[johnmark7]

Sorry, culture determines content and substance in all forms of art.

Yes, basic story telling is universal - a quest, good vs. evil, boy meets girl, solve a mystery.

And people are happy when the quest succeeds, the hero beats the bad guy, the man and woman overcome obstacles to mate, and the mystery is solved.

But the question as to why the quest is undertaken, who is the hero representing or why, what marriage is a symbol of, and what is the mystery worth knowing is different from culture to culture. And vastly different from oriental to Western and Christian.

If you don't recognize those difference, you aren't looking very closely.

If you don't see the incredible differences between German, French, Italian, and English cinema and TV, and those compared to American cinema, then you can't begin to call yourself a critic or an astute observer.

Where American movies and TV differ from the Japanese, the differences are vast. And that's where you have to look. Not at soap operas that closely mimic each other world over, or MTV music shows, or American Idol clones, but the places where things aren't being copied.

[shalom aleichem]

Also, Pay Forward featuring Kevin Spacey. All is happy and wonderful at the end but the hero kid is suddenly stabbed to death! Nice /s

[kalee]

ing

[zook]

"Fireflies" is not intended for small children by any means. It's suitable for pre- and young teens with some parental guidance--kids need to know the historical context.

Teraithia is a pre-to-young teens book. I didn't care for the book at all, frankly, nor did my daughter. But when we saw the trailer for the film we both remarked that it seemed not at all like we remembered the book. The filmmakers have added lots of fantasy stuff that wasn't really in the book at all.

[KeepUSfree]

Ummm, how about Bambi ???

[zook]

Re "Fireflies." That was a perceptive comment on your part. I use this film in some of my university courses and students don't often catch that. They tend to want to see it simply as a sad anti-war movie.

[zook]

Anything from Miyazaki's studio is terrific. You mentioned a couple of my favorites, to which I'd add "Spirited Away," "Pom Poco," "Whispers of the Heart," and several others.

[CARDINALRULES]

I watched the tv movie version of this several times when I was a kid, but I have very little interest in watching this version.

[Richard Kimball]

Old Yeller. I still get teary eyed at the end of Old Yeller. That being said, sounds like a great movie, but very bad marketing. that was also my problem with Million Dollar Baby. Not the movie, but selling it as Rocky when it was about assisted suicide.

[TET1968]

Remember "Radio Flyer" ?
A film supposedly about two young brothers, with non other than Tom Hanks in the cast?
There are people who have seen this movie who still believe the younger brother is traveling around the world sending his friends postcards when in fact the movie is about survivors guilt over the physical abuse of the younger brother and his subsequent "Flying away"...( Committing suicide.)

If you can decipher allegories, or worse, have been abused as a child yourself, do not watch this film, it will break your heart....again.

[Burkean]

The film is not marketed properly.

The author is a Christian couneslor whose son was upset by the sudden and senseless death of a friend (she was struck by lightning). The book was written as a way of teaching children to deal with death.

It has been a contentious book every since it was published and won the Newberry Award. It's not only the matter of death, whcih many parents want to shield their cildren from, but also gender issues that keep it a debatable book. The children have gender neutral names--Jess and Leslie. The boy Jess wants to be an artist but his father doesn't consider that manly enough. The girl Leslie, besides having short hair when all the other girls have long hair, is a tomboy and outruns all the boys in their recess race.