In This Corner of the World

This anime feature offers an initially gentle take on the lot of a young housewife living in a Japanese naval town in the 1930s, but does so with the hindsight that future events in nearby Hiroshima will greatly impact her life. When we first meet Suzu, she's a dreamy schoolgirl with a distinctive talent for sketching, and although an arranged marriage derails her creative ambitions, she retains an artistic perspective on her surroundings. Director Sunao Katabuchi thus brings an eye-catching visual quality to the storytelling, which at times magically shifts from realist animation into the idealised vistas of his own drawings. As Suzu knuckles down to her domestic duties under the gaze of a stern sister-in-law, we're also privy to a touching portrait of everyday resilience - about to be tested to the limit by wartime privations. The film stands at a slight remove from the atomic horrors, so as not to be overwhelmed by the carnage, yet more of a concern is the abiding sense of the Japanese as victims of the US war machine. Downplaying the national culpability may play within modern-day Japan, but could well rankle with those on the other side of that wartime divide.