Grave of the Fireflies

 Movie: Grave of the Fireflies

Rating: *****

"September 21st, 1945. That was the night that I died."

    The words spoken above are the words first heard through the narrative of the main character of the series in the first ten seconds of the movie, ten-year-old Seita, as he falls to the floor weakly in a wrecked train station, and with his last breath, muttering the name of his four-year-old sister, Setsuko. Seconds later, a train station employee digs through the boy's pockets and finds a rusted candy tin, and, after tossing it out in the war-stricken field outside, the lid pops out, and spills out a small amount of bone and ash into the night. Fireflies then start to rise slowly like a reverse rain as a small girl's spirit springs from the can, and, after realizing the girl is Setsuko, and seeing the two join hands, walking away together into the rising glowing insects, the viewer knows how the movie has ended, and yet, wonders how it could have ever gotten there.

    Isao Takahata's 1988 Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, an animated war tragedy film, is based on the semi-autobiographical short story A Grave of Fireflies, written in 1967, accounting for the true story of what happened to his sister during the Kobe Air Raids in Japan, with the only difference being between that - and this movie - is he changed his character's fate than what happened in real life, as Nosaka was Seita and his sister was Setsuko. I will also be doing a review of that book too sometime. Set at the end of World War Two, it tells the story of fourteen-year-old Seita and his four-year-old sister Setsuko just trying to survive, and that's pretty much it. As Takahata has said himself in an interview in the Bluray copy of the animated film: 

        "I wanted to show my audience how these two lived. It's different from following a storyline. A strong story doesn't need details. The story alone would be enough to appeal to and impress the audience. Here, I had to show the details because the story itself is very simple. You see, Grave of the Fireflies wasn't really a story per see. It's about two children who apparently died. There wasn't anything else. I had to try and get the audience to experience the experiences and lives of these two children and the circumstances they were in. That's why I decided to emphasize the details."

    So, as a very simple story, it is those really small details that make the story what it is. There are three main ideas that I want to discuss, and it's through the combination of these ideas, as well as the story, that makes this movie for what it is. The first time I watched this movie, even though I've seen many war films, I was brought pretty much to tears for the harsh reality it showed, yet the magical enchanted it also sparked within you.

    The very first point that makes this movie for what it is actually is a surprisingly huge contrast to the idea it is trying to make. The movie's soundtrack is absolutely breathtaking. It adds a musical charm, often repeating the same songs over and over, using little chimes, and often, they only last about thirty seconds to a minute. The contrast here is that most of the movie contains almost no music whatsoever. It is very down-to-earth, showing the harsh reality of what happened back in 1945. The fact that we are seeing this war through pure civilian eyes, not something to hide behind like music to tell us, "Okay, it's just a movie..." It stops and makes us think.

    And that is what leads us to the second point. In Japanese poetry, they'll use a "pillow word". And, just like the poetry, you can see the same thing done throughout this movie, but "pillow shots". Basically, it's the example of something happening, and a shot is put in letting us take what just happened in, think, and or ponder over it before it continues. An example of this in the movie would be as Setsuko and Seita are running from their smoke-filling house as it is set ablaze from the B-29 incendiary bombs, they take a breath outside where all is silent. You see a shot of a bucket on the ground, then another of a ladder and a mop against a wall, and then another of a leaf floating in a water trough, and then more explosions ensure. It's these types of shots that this movie is filled with that make this movie for what it is. It gives the viewer time to sit and think, like finishing a paragraph or a chapter, but also adding a delectable taste of art.

    Grave of the Fireflies is filled with an artistic look, as are most Studio Ghibli movies out there. In the case of this movie, you can tell clearly that the movie - especially the backgrounds - has a watercolor look. Colors that bleed, whitish in a way, barely any that have a black outline in them, and I think that it gives it a more, not only magical tone but an important childishness to it as well. Remember, this is war seen through the eyes of children, so the fact it's more colorful in some areas actually makes the whole reality of what we are watching on the screen harsher, which is not something we are spared. This movie is littered with corpses, dead bodies, bloody bandages, burning bodies, maggots, and so much more. 

This movie isn't afraid to blend all of these statements together to show what the harsh reality is. We've all seen Saving Private Ryan and all those shooters, but have we ever really seen not only the civilization side of war, but the fact that America wasn't always the good guys we portrayed ourselves to be. When I watched this film for the first time, I never realized that we did this. We dropped those bombs. America is always "poor us with Pearl Harbour", and yet, nobody knows about what we did on the side. One starts to realize that the fireflies in the movie could actually be symbolism for innocent life, and or children. 

    There was an author by the name of David C. Stahl who wrote a chapter of a book called Imag(in)ing The War In Japan and he interviewed Akiyuki Nosaka on his original work A Grave of Fireflies, and I thought this response from Nosaka himself would be a great way to end the review. 

        "One can't know the air raids without experiencing them.... I know it's futile to think that others will understand, but I will say this: children suffer most in war. The expression on the faces of famished Nigerian children, Jewish children in Auschwitz and Vietnamese children was no different than that of my sister who died of malnutrition. Two thirds of the children that sought shelter in Sannomiya Station probably died there. What crime did those children who starved to death there amidst the smell of urine commit? Adults were responsible for the war, and if there is another war, it will be our fault.... Complacently living as we do in peace and prosperity, we naturally think Vietnam has nothing to do with us. But one misstep, war breaks out and women and children suffer (Nosaka 1969: 195)."

    So really, just as Setsuko cries in the film, "Why do fireflies have to die so soon?"