What Family's For

Portraying family in media is always a fascinating thing. There are many different outlooks on how it functions, if it naturally works well or poorly, how the different members act, etc. In The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter is a young hooligan who will not listen to his mother’s sage advice. In the end, Mrs. Rabbit is proven right, and Peter returns home shaken from his encounter.  He did not lose his familial rights, and Mother took good care of him despite the trauma.  The charity seen between people, or animals, of different generations is so nurturing and humane; it is humanity.

I really enjoyed watching the home movies.  It defies all of the books and films we have watched because of how real, how genuine, and how irrefutable it is.  You could see the joy and awe of Thevenin family in their little children.  I enjoyed watching Ben’s face light up as he watched his children; there is something in little home documentaries that is worth more than any Hollywood film.  Trying to capture children on camera while they are still young is almost a knee-jerk reaction. You know they will grow old so quickly, so you film them to try to bottle up experiences while they are still young.

I Wish has a really interesting perspective on intersubjectivity and on family relations.  The two brothers are separated one with each divorced parent.  In films like this normally one parent or the other is the bad guy, but I don’t think that this happens in I Wish.  They are both imperfect but do what they can.  The older boy, Koichi, desperately wants his family to live together again, but over the course of the film he comes to realize that this won’t and maybe shouldn’t happen.  The younger boy, Ryunosuke, tries to make the best of the situation, and even manipulates his father when he needs money.  Family relations are all about give and take. It isn’t perfect, but when you need to get out of school a nice grandpa who has your back can sure help convince a hardnosed teacher.  The film was delightful. I loved seeing the children find a common family in each other as they tried to get miracles from watching the bullet trains pass.  Though many, or all, of the miracles will never happen, the two brothers were able to reconnect and strengthen each other, which is what family is for.