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Sunday, February 17, 2019

Mirai (2018)

The story is that of a boy who is happily enjoying being at the center of his parent's world.  The montage at the beginning shows them meeting, dating, moving in together, getting a dog, and then Kun arrives.  As far as he is concerned, life is perfect and why would you want anything more?
Then Mirai, his younger sister, comes home.  She is a bit fussy, his parents have no time for him, they are tired and stressed, and Kun is beside himself with grief over this.  Each time something happens that gets him into big trouble, or he loses his temper, there is an imaginary dream like sequence that follows, trying to show him another point of view, a way to see things a different way and be less distressed.
These scenes start off kind of oddball, and by the last one they are just way out there, but the animation, both within the fantasy and in Kun's everyday life, is truly stunning.  Whatever you think of the story and its arc, it is visually stunning.  The movie emotionally took me two places--the first was back to when our second child came home and  our first was beside himself with anger about the whole thing for several weeks.  The second is that when he has a second child himself,  his first may very well struggle hersel as she has very clearly loved being the absolute center of her universe.  The lesson that life can carry challenges comes early.

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