I'd like to echo what an earlier reviewer noted: that Ladybug, Ladybug is the sort of movie that can stay with you for a very long time. The one and only time that I saw the movie was likely around 1970, when I was seven years old. I watched quite a few movies on TV when I was that age -- by myself -- and without any kind of preparation or explanation I remember being engrossed by the film.
While I remember the plot,which has already been well-described so far, it's particular images that still stick with me. Someone mentioned refrigerators, and that perhaps is the one moment in the film that terrified me the most. I remember the system of warning lights in the school, a single moment of the teacher leading the kids down a dirt road and, again, the old fridge at the end of the movie.
What is also memorable, from the perspective of a small child, is the sense of unease and dread that permeated the entire film. It also played a small role in shaping my attitudes towards war and conflict at a very early age. Is this reading too much into a childhood memory of a film? Probably, but writing my one and only IMDb entry on a film that I saw once 40 years ago is evidence of its quiet power.
