It puts you in a room with a kid in 1931 and dares you to be bored. Nothing happens: Chameko wakes, washes, eats, goes to school, plays, comes home, sleeps. That's the whole movie, marched along by a chirpy children's tune that carries the picture the way a nursery rhyme carries a toddler down a sidewalk. What sneaks up on you is the date. This is pre-war Japan animating an ordinary morning, no war, no message, no idea what's coming, and the innocence of that lands harder than any epic. The linework is simple and the loops are obvious, but somebody sat there and drew a small girl brushing her teeth like it mattered. Ten minutes, nearly a century old, and it still feels like flipping through someone's childhood photo album.

Chameko is a Japanese school girl, and this comedy film from 1931 follows her through a single ordinary day. At school she earns good marks, and afterward she heads out to the cinema with her family. Made before the Second World War, the film offers a light slice-of-life look at a young girl's everyday routine.