The Portrait (1993)

Given a choice between a man and a mountain, it’s safer to choose the mountain.

Hokum is an enjoyable horror film that will probably get a little under your skin, but it isn’t the tour de force that you might be expecting.

It was always people for Joe, and he ultimately found them at the end of a long, painful, yet illuminating quest for self-discovery outside of one, confident constant - his bisexuality.

I understand that this would have been consistent with the language used by that generation, due to its role in the medical profession, however as someone who has family members with Down Syndrome I took it very personally.

Dora is the superhero we didn't know we needed.

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.