Poor but happy, young Nello and his grandfather live alone, delivering milk as a livelihood, in the outskirts of Antwerp, a city in Flanders (the Flemish or Dutch-speaking part of modern-day Belgium). They discover a beaten dog (a Bouvier, a large sturdy dog native to Flanders) and adopt it and nurse it back to health, naming it Patrasche, the middle name of Nello’s mother Mary, who died when Nello was very young. Nello’s mother was a talented artist, and like his mother, he delights in drawing, and his friend Aloise is his model and greatest fan and supporter.
Very depressive movie. Similarly depressive to the Grave of the fireflies I’d say.
As if Japanese telling us, Europeans, why would you need this Christianity thing of yours if it does not work, after all?
Same things they tell about their own sets of beliefs and their own society in the Grave of the fireflies.