The movie feels like a child throwing his brightly coloured marbles on the floor: they look fascinating, going each in a different direction, their noise is loud yet pleasant and in the end one feels like laughing. But also as a spectator, if you are familiar with what a broken family means, there are moments when you feel like crying. A small girl lives with her violent father who gambles a lot and takes money from his own parents, while her mother is away from home, not wanting the father to know that she is seeing her daughter from time to time. But...things are not so cliché at all, the girl is a tough nut, the father is sometimes really well meaning, the mother is somehow too delicate, and the grandparents still treat their own son as a young boy, snapping at him and hitting him. you feel like you did not "get" each of them all over again when the story changes a couple of times. Old enemies become friends, on the edge of the absurd, only not quite, if you think of how things turn up in life. The movie is definitely worth seeing up to the end, because it has something unique. It also has violence, sincere facts of life, and the portraits of people from another culture or era. The hilarious scenes take you by surprise, one can't help laughing even if you somehow feel you should have stayed serious or even upset at some scene or another. Some Takahata features are visible too, the fighting cats, foe example, similar to the raccoon-dogs from Pom Poko. Very lively movie.
Review of Chie the Brat
