A Summer at Grandpa's

I've been getting a bit tired of coming-of-age films, and not especially thrilled with Hou to begin with, but I liked this anyway. It's more accessible than A Time to Live, and I don't mean "accessible" in a snobby way. I mean it didn't put me to sleep. if you want to go looking for metaphors, you can find plenty, but I think it's meant to be exactly what it is: a simple, honest, genuine snapshot of childhood, and family life through the eyes of children. Quite nice.

Very serene and genuine. Great as a simple snapshot of rural Japanese summer, but also has enough melancholy and thoughtfulness to become something more, which it didn’t even need to do, like damn!

A beautiful Totoro predecessor, but kind of emotionless and I wish it was a little bit more focused on the sister and other women of this movie instead of the boy, that's mostly a loud, unlikeable brat, always making trouble and never doing what he should do, or the reckless uncle.