Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

A Brilliant Conflict

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A young girl, Naomi is a typical bad girl of city. One day, she gets to go to her relative's home in countryside. Then she comes to take care of an old woman, Ms. Koide. Naomi is under 20 years old, so she must not drink or smoke but Ms. Koide does not blame her. Therefore she can behave as she is in front of Ms. Koide. Naomi comes to learn many things through the life with her. This is not only a story of one girl's growing but also an old woman's last story. The scene of Japan's countryside is also beautiful. You may get a good feeling through this movie.

This film is about the change of the high school girl in the summer vacation. She had got wild because of her family problems but by staying with her cousin's family and getting involved with an old lady, something changes in her personality. She is very straightforward and her attitude are quite easily affected by her feelings. Especially she frequently changes her attitudes towards her innocent cousin. This seems too childish for me, so I do not like her. And some bond between she and the old lady made changes in her but when and why did they come so intimate? In our daily lives it often occurs that people become friendly before we know, though. Probably I think I demand reasons too much in stories. I raise the part I didn't like above, but I liked the music used in this film and the scenery of the countryside. That made me feel relaxed.

Firefly Dreams is basically a nice story about returning to traditional values in the face of the ugliness and shallowness of urban life. Packed off to relatives in the countryside by her parents, a young woman develops a variety of friendships - in particular one with an elderly woman who, it seems, has had an interesting past - and discovers herself in the process. What sets this film apart from others in the genre is the degree of understatement that pervades it. Events occur off camera and connections between events are made, but there is refreshingly little explication, leaving viewers to think for themselves. I would not call Firefly Dreams a masterpiece; the story is fairly predictable and simplistic, the characters are pretty generic, and the cinematography is unchallenging. But it is a nice film and leaves some tantalizing questions to mull over even as you return the DVD to the store.

The plot of this film reminded me of "On Golden Pond." In this case a teenage girl who is somewhat troubled is sent off to the country when her parents separate. She becomes reacquainted with an elderly relative who is suffering from Alzheimer's.The pace of the film is slow, but the scenery is spectacularly beautiful, which most of us would not have expected from Japan as most films there are set in the big cities. The sounds of the cicadas made my wife very homesick for the country where she grew up.The film tied for the audience award for best dramatic feature at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival), which is where I saw it on 2/26/2002.