Grace is Gone

Hello, everyone~!

Before I started writing today's post, I was wondering what to write about. But don't worry! I ended up coming up with a story, which is about the movie I've seen lately.

The movie is called "Grace is Gone." As you can see on the poster, John Cusack stars in the film.

The story itself is very simple, but it's thought-provoking as well. It's a movie about a young father whose wife has gone to the war, and he was told that his wife was killed in Iraq. For him, the fact that she's gone meant he needed to tell his daughters what happened to their mom. For him, his wife's death was very hard to accept. But even in the situation like that, he still had a thing to do. He somehow needed to make his daughters understand their mom's death.

I've been interested in this film even before the movie company in Japan began paying attention to it due to the fact that the movie won the Sundance Film Festival 2007. But I wasn't sure about if it would be released in Japan. So, I was really glad when I heard about the news that it could be seen in Japan! ^^

What interested me was the story is based on the family whose mom has gone to war. In Japan, we simply can watch the news footage about the war in Iraq, but when it comes to each of the people who have been deployed in Iraq, it's very rare. And the news about the people out there is on the air, it's usually about the men. So, the movie gave me a point of view that I couldn't get from the media I've seen or read previously. The number of women in the military reflects the current situation of how much women in uniform are featured on the TV news shows. But as more and more women join the army, I think the need for the coverage of women in uniform would increase because the more we know about their situation the more we can think about actions that needs to be done for themselves and families.

And as a student who studies International Politics, it definitely made me realize how much time we would need to understand the meaning of war and I felt a bit frustrated at the fact that just learning how the world works surely has a limit and even makes me confused sometimes. According to what I've learned, the war itself is a phenomenon and a view like this rarely pays attention to the people who are involved. After watching the movie, I thought about how the family would have gone through the loss they've experienced. Hmmm.... once I started to think about it, it easily becomes complicated. But the one thing that's true is, the pain that the family like the one on this movie has would never heal.

If you have a chance to see the movie, why don't you give it a try?
You can watch the trailer here!


Alright, that's all for today!