Our Little Sister

Last night I watched the movie Our Little Sister, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, and based on the manga Unimachi Diary by Akimi Yoshida.  It's about three adult sisters who live together in a large house in Kamakura, Japan.  While at the funeral for their estranged father, who none of them has seen for fifteen years, they meet their fourteen year old half sister, and invite her to come and live with them.  It's a very gentle, wistful, quiet film.  Very little actually happens, just the quiet ups and downs of life.  Sometimes dark, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always warm, I really liked it.

It was a really long day at work, and I'm very tired.  I can't wait until my week off.

The Fireman

I finished reading The Fireman by Joe Hill. It's a novel about a world plagued by an infectious disease nicknamed "Dragonscale" that manifests itself as intricate, tattoo-like designs on the hosts skin, which might be nice, except that sooner or later it causes the host to ignite and burn to death. Soon civilization collapses, with survivors either infected or terrified of infection. Cheery, school nurse Harper is infected, and is also pregnant. Realising that the baby may be born uninfected, she is determined to survive until it is born. As she avoids roaming bands of vigilantes murdering those infected, her only hope of survival is The Fireman, who has learned the secret of harnessing and controlling Dragonscale. It's a long book, 752 pages, but very good and very powerful.

I went out and got a couple of Blu-rays: Our Little Sister and Ivan's Childhood (which finally completes the Andrei Tarkovsky collection that I started in 2003). Unfortunately the store is closing down at the end of the month for relocation. I asked, but they don't know where they're going yet.