Eclair Movie Analysis

We are the protagonists of our own lives. There is no doubt that the centers of our lives are our selves. Every day is tantamount to a movie with its plot materializing in our every move, from the smallest details that our body do to the wide range of imagination and rational thinking that occurs in our mind. In line with this, I will try to diverge myself from my own story and look at the story of another person by understanding the plot of his story, examining his story’s characters and relating the identified morals of his story to my own life.

“Éclair” is a movie about a boy named Akio who lost his family at a very young age. The setting of the story takes place in Japan during and after the Second World War. Akio’s rollercoaster adventure in the plot starts as he escapes from an orphanage and a police officer chases him for stealing sweets from a local merchant. Upon recognizing that Akio is a runaway, the police officer named Toyoma, moved by the orphan’s situation, expresses kindness by giving him more food to appease his hunger. A reform school managed by abusive educators takes custody of him in line with this event.

I will classify Toyoma and Yoko as supporting characters who help Akio through their kindness when Toyoma offers food to the boy and Yoko becomes his source of joy inside the reform school managed by cruel teachers. In contrast, the spiteful educators of the reform school, Fusano, and his unfortunate circumstances are the antagonist to Akio’s life. His teachers, with exception to Yoko, treat him abusively as they tell him that they are worthless. Fusano’s actions were similar as she exploits Akio to work for the sake of earning money. To name a few, the early death of his parents, his repetitive separation from the people he loved, and the effects of the war itself such as; hunger, scarcity, poverty and death, are the circumstances which caused difficulty in his