GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES
Antidepressant, anyone?
Review by: M.H. "Make love, not war" Torringjan
Length: 85 minutes
Genre: War, drama
Watched: Entire movie, subbed
Every once in a while, a big, important film critics association puts out a list of the top animated films of all time. I can always be counted on to read the list to see how many of them I've seen and subsequently proceed to watch as many of the rest as I can (after all, movies are my lifeblood, and animated ones give me extra strength, somewhat like a mushroom for a plumber). I had heard of this film before seeing it on the list, but I wasn't aware of how highly regarded it was. When I saw it on the list, I jumped at the chance to download and watch it. About 1.5 hours later, I needed a hug. Warning: intake of this film, either voluntary or forced, will make you want to adopt a small Asian child. Don't worry, it's a normal urge.
Plot summary: The story is set near the end of World War II, as the Americans are attacking Japan with air raids and naval warfare. Two children, Setsuko and Seita, lose their mother in one such raid, forcing them to live with an aunt. Their father is in the navy, and is strangely inaccessible for the entire film. When a dispute drives them from their aunt's house, they are forced to fend for themselves against a world embroiled in war.
Artwork: The style for this film is realism, for the most part. Pretty standard for the time and the genre. The style becomes more and more stark as the film goes on, though, to match the mood. Overall, the character designs are fairly generic and somewhat reminiscent of those in Miyazaki's films. Nothing new under the sun here.
Music: The music in this film was very sparsely placed, and extremely appropriate for the mood. Of note is their use of silence, which helped to set the mood when it was used. Some of the strongest scenes of this film were in complete silence, which is to the film-makers' credits. Needless to say, since the music was mostly used to set mood, it isn't very strong as a stand-alone soundtrack.
Characters: This film has a pretty small cast of two ordinary kids, Seita and Setsuko. Seita is the older brother, who takes on the mission of caring for his little sister after their mother dies. He is a proud boy, who tries to give Setsuko the happiest life that he can give her. Needless to say, he cares deeply for his sister, even to the point of stealing for her. He believes deeply in the Japanese armed forces, and the rightness of their cause and believes in his father. Setsuko is very young, probably on the order of three or four, and doesn't understand the ways of the world yet enough to know what's going on. She cares for her brother, the only one of her family that she has left, and displays the childlike enthusiasm and predisposal to the visceral pleasures that any child her age would. One might mention their aunt in this section, but I'd rather not get mad again.
Plot: This plot strikes deeply into the effect that war has, not on society or on the soldiers, but into the effect that war plays in the lives of normal people, specifically two children, who have little if anything to do with it. The story does you a favor at the beginning and, much like American Beauty, lets you know that these two children are, in fact, going to die. This, however, does very little to lessen the impact that the film has, and in fact may provide a counterpoint to the smatterings of enthusiastic points in the film by letting you know that no matter how happy the children are now, in about an hour or so, they aren't going to be anymore.
CHICKS!! You will not be thinking about chicks at all while you're watching this film. The only females at all are a three-year-old girl and a stone cold bitch of an aunt. It's a war film about innocent children, which is about the worst place in the world to put fanservice. If you're thinking about chicks at all, go get your jollies on Plastic Little, then come back and watch it in a better frame of mind.
Overall: This film was rated as one of the best animated films of all time, not because of the animation or the state-of-the-art anything. It got there on pure grit and heartfelt story-telling. Overall, this is the strongest anti-war production I've ever seen, and may be one of the strongest animated ones ever made. This is hardly a film that you watch lightly, and not a date film, but you might want to check it out at least once, just so that you can cross that one off the list.
In a nutshell:
+ Real story-telling
+ Characters very sympathetic
+ Mood set very strongly
- God, that's a downer
Final grade: 9/10
Note: images taken from Untitled Hotaru and used without permission. Take a look at their site and give them some more hits!
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