Review of Barefoot Gen

Gen is a little boy who lives in Hiroshima in Japan along with his father,little brother,Shinji,elder sister,Eiko,and mother,Kimie,who is pregnant and about to give birth soon.The backdrop is the ongoing Second World War and the year is 1945,the year the world came to a still.The city of Hiroshima is suffering from severe scarcity of even basic food like rice and also medicines and other such necessary commodities of life.Even then,Gen and Shinji are two boys with magnanimous spirits who live life king-size even in the face of adversity.They were a happy family with every one taking care of the others and working hard together tomake ends meet.The common goal of the other members of the family was to look after Kimie,Gen's mother,so that she could painlessly give birth to a healthy baby.
The war had been going on for quite a few years and by now it had become a routine for them to hide in shelters whenever enemy planes were sighted in the sky to protect themselves from being bombed.But one day,an enemy plane was sighted in the sky but the alarm for the residents to take cover didn't go off.Gen was on his way to school that morning.And then the bomb was dropped.The atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima by the U.S. plane Enola Gay which changed the couse of Japan's history forever.
'Barefoot Gen' doesn't need to be explained.It is as straightforward as anything can be.The atomic bomb which devastatingly wiped out more than 60% of Hiroshima on that fateful day has been justly depicted.The movie doesn't condemn or appreciate the bombing and it doesn't impose any views on the viewer.It just shows in its full scale the nightmare that millions of people lived through since that day and how humans created hell on Earth themselves.
As soon as the bomb was dropped,all life was obliterated,and those who survived were actually the more unfortunate ones.Mutated by the radiation beyond human recognition,there is a scene where Gen wonders whether the zombie-like people on the verge of death were still humans or not.Then came the black radioactive rain from the lethal cloud of poisonous gases and smoke that had enveloped the city which polluted all the water sources killing anyone who drank such water.Gen and his mother were the lucky survivors.They strived to survive in that hell even after they had to watch the rest of their family being burned alive helplessly.Gen's newborn sister is now his and his mother's only reason to go on living.But the curse doesn't spare his sister either.But he still goes on living.That is Gen and that is how every person should be.
Barefoot Gen makes us self-reflect.It shows how inhumane we can become for selfish purposes.It shows how the curse called 'War' affects innocent people who have nothing to do with it.It also shows how some aristrocrats and politicians act against the wishes of the citizens of the country and shrewdly propagate war to protect their own pride without caring for the millions of people whose life they take in the process.This ignorance and selfishness of the country's leaders is shown when even after such a devasting damage was inflicted upon its citizens,the then leaders of Japan refused to surrender even when they knew that then the U.S. would drop another atomic bomb on the country.And thus,three days later,the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and it all ended when after this Japan finally surrendered.But the damage was done with everyone at the losing end.
"Why not before?",Kimie asked enragedly upon hearing about Japan surrendering after enduring the two greatest human-induced mass extinctions in history.This sent a chilling shiver down my spine as I sensed the desperation,the helpness,the measure of pain and sadness that canot be put in words behind this question.Scavenging for food,fighting over trash,being infected by deadly worms and shunned from human contact just waiting for their death every day as their flesh goes on rotting,this tells us how Mankind's biggest enemy is mankind itself.
The best and shining star here is Gen.Even in such dire straits,he doesn't back away from helping anyone,he thinks about everyone else before himself.He refuses to back down and vows to survive and protect everyone and make his deceased father proud of him.His honesty should put every one of us to shame.They took away everything from him,but that doesn't keep him from living life to the fullest.The saga of this honest and brave boy makes us all bow our heads in shame.It is he,who through all his pain and suffering,makes us realise how savage war is and that it proves nothing.NOTHING good ever comes from war.
Hadashi no Gen is a revelation.It is meant to show us the effects of our selfish deeds.We all read in our history books about how Japan endured such hell being raised on its grounds but that's about all of it.We don't really realise the grim situation,the extent of suffering of the victims.This movie is meant to show us that.It is meant to make us experience the widespread sorrow and pain that still prevails in these parts of the world.I don't know how anyone can not cry after watching this because as for me,I don't remember crying this much over something for a long time.I pay my respects to the fallen and the innocent victims of human hate and greed.We can only hope that after this,we humans will finally become wise enough not to repeat such horrors.
Even if for no other reason,whether you like it or not,watch this because the millions of victims of this tragic and inhumane incident at least deserve to have the tragedy and pain in their life known to people throughout the world.It is the least we can do for them to show our respect.