Wolf Children

Mamoru Hosoda / Studio Chizu and Madhouse

We are almost there, Wolf children (original title Ookami kodomo no Ame to Yuki), the latest masterpiece directed by Mamoru Hosoda is about to arrive on the Italian big screens, distributed exclusively by Dynit, after literally breaking the box office in Japan in July 2012. The anime film narrates the family affairs of the young university student Hana, over 13 years, in which there will be tender and moving moments, sad events and a lot of maternal love.

The anime begins with the narration of a female voice who turns out to be that of Yuki, the eldest daughter of the protagonist of the story. The voiceover tells his story and that of his parents with a grace and a grace that belongs only to the Japanese language and of which, unfortunately, the Italian dubbing fails to restore the musicality. The young Hana is in a flowery field and a figure stands out on the horizon, a tall, young and beautiful man. The two boys seem to be in love, but this is only a glimpse of what will be one of the key scenes of the animated film.

We meet with Hana on the university desks. She looks fascinated at the young man who had appeared on the field with her. He looks like a rather lonely boy, he always sits on the sidelines and doesn't talk to anyone. Hana breaks through the wall of her privacy and manages to penetrate her heart. Young people start dating. One evening the boy arrives late for an appointment with Hana who, despite the cold, has been waiting for him. Under a starry sky (which seems to be real as it is well designed), the boy reveals his secret to the student.

Mamoru Hosoda / Studio Chizu and Madhouse

He is a werewolf descended from the now extinct Japanese wolf lineage. Undaunted Hana chooses to love him. The two boys live together and soon the girl becomes pregnant. There are many fears, the first is to keep the true identity of the partner hidden. The boy takes care of Hana throughout her pregnancy, assisting her during the most difficult moments such as those of frequent nausea. The baby is born at home. Together they decide not to give birth in the hospital for fear that the baby could be a wolf. But Yuki, which means snow, is born beautiful and completely similar to humans on a cold evening when the snow fell copiously. This too made with graphics that makes it extremely real.

After a year, the second child arrives, Ame (which means rain). The father, one morning, is late in returning. Hana gets out of bed, she has a feeling. She opens the door of her house and finds the shopping bags with her man's wallet inside. Once again it is Yuki's narrator who explains the facts. Hana rushes out with the children, while the rain is heavy. Arriving on a bridge she sees operators hauling a large dead wolf up from a canal. Hana falls to her knees in the rain. Yuki explains that it was never known what her father was doing that day, if he tried to hunt by instinct or to provide nutritious food for his partner, in any case he had been killed.

Hana with Yuki and Ame Mamoru Hosoda / Studio Chizu and Madhouse

Hana does not lose heart and decides to raise her two children on her own, thanks also to a sum set aside by his partner sufficient for their livelihood. However, things get complicated. Both children inherited their paternal lycanthropy. They can turn into wolves at will, not only with a full moon as legend has it. Little Yuki has an incredible voracity and an irrepressible vivacity. The child, on the other hand, appears calmer, almost mammon. She often cries during the night and the neighbors can't tolerate any longer.

Social workers are sent to Hana's house, who with skilful maneuvers manages to keep them from entering. So she decides to go and live in the mountains, the mountains of a photo that her partner had shown her. He thinks that in this way his little ones will be safer. The house that Hana buys is little more than a dilapidated shack, isolated from the rest of the village, but little Yuki jumps for joy in the grass, while Ame, desperate, wants to go back to the city. Hana with patience and love restores the house, with a willpower that only the maternal instinct for survival can bring out.

Yuki and Ame Mamoru Hosoda / Studio Chizu and Madhouse

Start studying from some books and try to plant a vegetable garden, but the plants are unable to grow. The peasants of the area, initially rough, soon give her a hand, building around the young mother a wall of solidarity and very intense affection. Meanwhile, the kids are growing up. Yuki goes to school, integrates perfectly with the other girls, but realizes her diversity. Ame, on the other hand, seems to be increasingly attached to her mother. Time passes and Hana marks the different heights of her children on a wooden beam. Young people know nature and above all Ame seems to have been kidnapped by it since, during a visit to a sort of reserve, he had seen a large wolf in captivity.

The two eyes met, fierce and wild, but the wolf immediately threw himself back to the ground in resignation, a resignation that Ame would never have experienced. Things are starting to change. Yuki becomes more feminine and conforms to the human lifestyle Ame, on the contrary, stops going to school and more and more often runs away with a companion from the animal world among woods and steep paths. Yuki knows a little boy. In the beginning the relationship is stormy, but after a misunderstanding the two seem to understand each other perfectly, to the point that Yuki reveals her double nature to him. History seems to repeat itself. The boy says he knew and would not reveal his secret to anyone.

Mamoru Hosoda / Studio Chizu and Madhouse

During a very bad storm, Ame disappears into the woods. Hana looks for him desperately but stumbles and falls into a ravine unconscious. The scene we saw at the beginning of the anime recurs. Hana is in a flowery field and a silhouette appears, "Ame" she shouts, convinced that it is her son, but it is her companion. He runs to meet him, they embrace. In tears he tells him that he missed him very much. He reassures her and praises her as a mother. "I made a lot of mistakes," says Hana, "You brought them up very well," he replies. Then Hana gasps and says that Ame is missing. The young man reassures her by telling her that she is fine and that she has made her choice. The paths of the two brothers, in fact, separate, each directed towards its own destiny.

The film is a beautiful story that invites you to appreciate and accept diversity, but also and above all of the maternal love, the strength and courage that it takes to raise two children alone. Not only that, it also teaches a great story, the one that a very good poet had told by saying that "Our children are not ours". Children don't belong to us. We make sacrifices for them, but we cannot keep them with us, we must leave them free to follow their path. Lyrical and moving, 1: 57 minutes of tenderness told with an unprecedented delicacy and with spectacular graphics.

Source: www.cartonionline.com

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