In the realms of animated history, it’s become common knowledge that Pixar has an unerring ability to leech salty tears from from even the most jaded moviegoer as some devestating turn of events has us ugly-crying at the misfortune of a bereaved fish or a discarded toy. But while many of you may think the the pinnacle of weep inducing animation peaked with the opening ten minutes of Up, Studio Ghibli had already been responsible for one of the most devestating emotional gut-punches years earlier with the unfeasibly sad Grave Of The Fireflies.
While the lion’s share of Ghibli’s output at that time had been helmed by Hayao Miyazaki, for this sob-inducing opus, the Studio’s other leading light, Isao Takahata, stepped into the breach and something quite unlike anything released by this, or any other animation house at that time. Ground breaking is the least of the thing this movie will break as the house that gave us the unmitigated joy of My Neighbour Totoro proves that it can snap us just as easily.
It’s March of 1945 and droning American bombers pound the city of Kobe into fiery submission during the final days of the Pacific War. As rampant fire takes out the buildings not out and out obliterated, we meet fourteen year-old Seita and his young sister Setsuko, two children of an Imperial Japanese Navy Captain soon find themselves homeless when their home is claimed by the destruction. Worse yet, despite only seeing their mother only shortly before as she headed off to a shelter, it seems that she was badly burned in the attack and dies from her wounds before a hospital can be found to admit her.
Choosing to save the innocent Setsuko the pain of the news, Seita takes the burden onto himself and keeps the news from both his sister and his aunt, who is forced to take them in. While Seita managed to provide somewhat by scavenging some of his mother’s belongs when can be traded for rice, life with his aunt soon becomes awkward when she treats her two charges significantly worse than her own, immediate family, which leads to Seita making a fateful choice. Leaving home, the young duo pledge to try and survive on their own, despite the fact that you need to be part of a community for anyone to properly survive in such tight conditions.
Making their home in an abandoned bomb shelter, at first the children believe that they’ve found some sort of idyllic existence as they wash in the nearby river and live off the land. However, as their reserves start to dwindle and the realities of a fourteen year-old and his little sister living rough in post war Japan start to make themselves known, a playful life soon becomes a tragic struggle as Seita desperately looks for more ways to feed his rapidly weakening sibling.
While a lot of Studio Ghibli’s earlier works had used a fantasy setting to gently press an anti-war sentiment, here the studio chose not to hide behind alien bugs and complex flying contraptions in order to put a point across and instead delivered a movie set directly at a point in actual history giving them (and us) nowhere to hide. Based on a semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, Takahata had similar experiences during the war himself and thus the whole experience feels almost overwhelmingly personal. But while the anti-war message seems pretty cut and dry, the director has repeatedly denied this, instead stating that the repeated tragedies that befall the two children are truly caused by their subsequent isolation from society and social norms as no one seems willing to step in and help these two kids who are obviously going to die if they try to continue the way they’re going. Yes, the war has caused the destruction, but the inability of the survivors to accept anything other than the norm presented to them causes then to shun two children simply trying to survive their own way.
In many ways, there’s some parallels between this film and Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One as both not only feature a sense of life trying to persevere in the aftermath of war, but both feature an innocent, orphaned, impossibly pure young child utterly oblivious to the events around her (seriously, Setsuko and Akiko are practically identical). But while both movies show the painful hardship of trying to eek out an existence in such trying conditions, Grave Of The Fireflies doesn’t include a massive Kaiju to distract us from the yawning loss. In fact, in many circles, the film has been dubbed as one of, if not the saddest film ever made which pretty much clues you in to what eventually happens to our two young leads. In fact, I’d go as far to say that Grave Of The Fireflies is the perfect film foe those who believes that Raymond Briggs’ When The Wind Blows is far too upbeat.
The result is cinematic alchemy. Takahata constantly heaps on the sadness as war, death, society, malnutrition and a shitty aunt take their inexorable toll on two kids who only want to live. You could point a finger at Seita’s decision to leave their aunt’s care as a contributing factor, but on the other hand, he’s a fourteen year-old boy who thinks he’s doing what is right in unimaginable circumstances. Impressively, despite all the sorrow and trauma, Takahata focuses on the happy moments, letting the dread build up naturally in the background. The kids are enraptured by using fireflies to light up their shelter at night and Setsuko’s life is constantly enlivened whenever she gets to have one of their stash of fruit drops – but reality looms at virtually every moment and while the movie mostly takes a stance of childlike wonder, when real-life intrudes it’s nothing less than devestating.
The sight of Seita seeing his seared mother wrapped in bandages is legitimately horrifying, as is the matter-of-fact nature of her death and cremation while the young boy simply has to accept what’s going on. Similarly, watching the child be viciously beaten by a farmer after trying to steal sugar cane will no doubt have you loudly questioning why no one is helping an obviously starving child. Even news of Japanse surrendering comes to Seita too late as the sinking of the Japanese fleet means that he father probably died weeks ago without his children having a single clue. However, possibly Grave Of The Fireflies’ greatest trick is starting the film with Seita starving to death and both his and Setsuko’s bewildered looking ghosts are the ones who shepherd us through their agonisingly moving backstory.
An utter masterpiece that busies itself about emotionally crippling it’s audience right from the word go, Grave Of The Fireflies may not be a film I’ll return to anytime soon, but that because it’s so damn good at doubling you over with some of the saddest storytelling you’re even likely to experience. Miyazaki may be adept at creating worlds of fantastical wonder, but Takahata knows how to use realism to really hit us where it hurts. Stunning animation, flawless performances and a merciless dedication to bringing you your knee means that in the storied history of Studio Ghibli, it’s the fireflies that (for once) last the longest.
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