THE INDISPENSIBLES - #21: GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES
Animation historian Ernest Rister describes Grave of the Fireflies as “the most profoundly human animated film” he has ever seen. As descriptions go, you could consider this to be the most accurate ‘poster quote’ ever written.
This is a film worthy of the term ‘greatest animated movie ever’.
It exists on a different plain of existence to the works of art given to us by the likes of Pixar. Because Grave of the Fireflies isn’t ‘entertainment’ – it transcends that. It is beauty, it is a visual eulogy, it’s painful and moving and traumatic and, possibly best of all, it is the greatest hymn to a world without war that you could ever wish for.
It is written and directed by Isao Takahata, animated by the hugely acclaimed Studio Ghibli and adapted from the autobiographical novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka, which was originally written as a personal apology to his own sister who died in 1945 as a result of malnutrition. By the movie’s end, whilst your heart lies broken, you realise he has nothing to apologise for but you can understand his mindset as to why he thinks he should.
Taking place toward the end of World War II in Japan, Grave of the Fireflies is the poignant tale of the relationship between two orphaned children, Seita and his younger sister Setsuko. The children lose their mother in the firebombing of Kobe, and their father in service to the Imperial Japanese Navy, and as a result they are forced to try to survive amidst widespread famine and the callous indifference of their countrymen (some of whom are their own extended family members).
Due to the graphic and truly emotional depiction of the negative consequences of war on society and the individuals therein, it is impossible not to view Grave of the Fireflies as an anti-war film. Perhaps even THE anti-war film. Come and See is worth mentioning in the same sentence, but Grave of the Fireflies has the advantage of giving us Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, two characters we adore with all our hearts like they were our own family members.
Grave of the Fireflies is an exhausting, emotional experience so powerful that it makes you realise that, within this often under-appreciated genre, lies films that are capable of moving away from being ‘just’ movies and becoming works of art. Grave of the Fireflies has moment upon moment worthy of being freeze-framed, printed and framed. It does the remarkable thing of doing what very few war or anti-war movies ever do – capturing the warped, strange, disturbing moments of beauty that appear fleetingly within scenes of true horror; for example, burning, half standing buildings set against the backdrop of the most gorgeously coloured skylines, or bombers appearing out of the cloud formations to intricately form their pattern before descending to their point of attack.
Isao Takahata’s visuals create a kind of poetry. He presents his film as being ‘about’ war without us needing sequences of tanks, rifle-firing soldiers and the like. This is a film not driven by the actions of war but the consequences that bleed into the lives of everyone.
But let’s ruminate further on some more of the gorgeous moments within the film, that more than justify its description here on in as a genuine work of art: Look at the scene where the children find the dead body on the beach or that beautifully realised moment when the children catch fireflies and use them to light the cave they now call a home. Take time to acknowledge the simple throwaway moments too, like the tender but methodical way in which Seita picks Setsuko up, puts her on his back and straps her into position.
Fate cannot be kind to these two children. We know that. This is not a film plotted for rescue aid to arrive and feed the characters and rescue them from their situation. This is not a movie to cater for mainstream sensibilities whereby a kindly American takes the kids under his wing and looks after them and gets them to safety even though they are meant to be his “enemy”. This is not that sort of movie. Knowing that, we find even the loveliest of moments cause us huge pain because we know that that one, that one or that one could be Seita or Setsuko’s last.
Look to that warm little moment when Seita traps an air bubble with a wash cloth and then releases it into his sister Setsuko’s little face. In your first experience with Grave of the Fireflies you smile with great affection upon sight of it. By the movie’s end it is one of many moments you think back to whilst wiping tears from your eyes.
Akiyuki Nosaka’s book is considered as a classic in Japan, and has since inspired a live-action film on top of this animated version. He wrote not as therapy, although the book did eventually take on that aura, but as an ode to his sister – a story that he didn’t want to tell, but that had to be told. It, and the subsequent movie, slowly form into a painfully whispered apology to her. He admits that in his race for food he would often eat first and provide second and this haunted him greatly for the rest of his days, it is said.
The book, on completion, did purge some demons he later said but the very fact that the film’s conclusion is “wish-fulfilment” and not reality was his greatest pain of all. [It took me two viewings before I realised that the final moments are what they are. When the realisation finally sank in, Grave of the Fireflies went from being something I greatly admired to something I fell head over heels in love with.]
Grave of the Fireflies flopped on its original release, even when they shuffled it into a double-bill with other lighter Studio Ghibli fare to try and off-set the “dark” subject matter. Nearly two decades on it is now as highly regarded as it rightly should be. However, ‘best of lists’ still don’t give it the kudos it deserves.
If you have never seen this film then you have never seen the animated form stretched to the level that it exceeds anything this beautiful, this painful, this important done in live action form.
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