Shonen jidai

Childhood Days is a very realistic portrayal of bullying. And by realistic I mean that both the bully and the bullied are shown to very human instead of being good or bad. It is very refreshing for a change and also it suddenly dawned on me, how incomplete and even wrong a narrative is if you are showing a bullying preteen to be evil as most films related to this topic often do.

I guess we are used to watching fights between good and evil in all our media whether it is fairy tales, television, books, films or even religion. There has to be a protagonist and an antagonist. Thankfully Childhood Days is different in that regard.

Childhood Days depicts the problem of bullying faced by a city kid who has to temporarily move to village. But the relationship between the two boys, the bully and the bullied is very hard to pin down. There is a camaraderie mixed with fear and admiration with a sort of helplessness. It is a very real relationship which is hard to describe, just as many real relationships are. Also along with the bullying it is a very nice coming of age story.

I know that the above review may not make the film sound really good. Nevertheless it is really a gem of a film. And if you are into films of Ozu or Naruse, I would strongly recommend it.