on campus there was a free screening of "hadashi no gen" (barefoot gen). i loved this comic book! (ok, there are 3 books to the tale) my mom made me read it when i was about 12 years old. at the time we were living in japan. being that she grew up on a 'colonized' type of island with foreign military bases, etc., my mom has always been to me this positive figure: anti-war, anti-weapons, anti-military, etc. because of this, somewhere inside of me i knew that war is bad, that weapons hurt, that the atomic bombs of WWII were awful, and had images of such kind of destruction, but i felt the comic did such a great job at expressing it and providing a visual and a narrative to help people imagine those times and just how horrible war is. the next time i'm in japan, i'm going to find the comics and buy a copy. there's probably an english version but i couldn't be bothered.

i have a copy of the dvd but there's just something about seeing films on a big screen. i wasn't sure who was hosting the screening but figured if it's part of the film community, then it will be shown in it's original language with subtitles. well, that's not how it was screened. i just can't stand to hear japanese names mispronounced. i was in hell. but watching it that way and talking to a friend i brought to the screening helped me to understand something about films. films are powerful, i know that, but too long perhaps i've been rubbing against those who consider themselves connoisseurs and that part of being a film connoisseur is to watch films in their original language. often i think a good part of an actor's performance is with is voice and i want to hear the original voice, even if i can't understand the language. but i have learned that the power of cinema may be weakened when watching a film that is subtitled. for example, "hadashi no gen" is a very moving story because it tells a war story through a family point of view, and more importantly from a child's point of view. if the words the children spoke had to have been read instead of hearing them, the power of the film may have been lost. it is quite different to read about a child trying to escape pain and death rather than to hear the child say "please help me. the fire is really hot. my feet are burning", etc. in the future, i don't think i will so quickly dismiss those who prefer to watch films in their own language instead of subtitles. though i'm sure i might inquire as to why that is so.