Picture Credits: Rotten Tomatoes
“Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”
Indeed, why do fireflies die so soon? Everything becomes all the more beautiful when it’s fleeting. Like the peaceful, good times people reminisce about during wars while being continuously bombarded from above, when they cannot even begin to grasp the crippling reality that has struck them, especially the small children. Grave of the Fireflies brings to us one such story of the fleeting life of two orphaned siblings.
Introduction
Movie’s Name - Grave of the Fireflies
Directed by - Isao Takahata
Genre - War Tragedy
Original language - Japanese
Running time - 1hr 29min
Synopsis - Spoiler Alert!
The movie moves in sort of a flashback. It tells the wounding story of two siblings, Seita (14) and his younger sister Setsuko (4), in Kobe, Japan, floundering through life during the concluding months of World War 2. The movie begins with Seita dying of starvation in Kobe train station. It’s September 21, 1945 and the war has ended.
Later that evening, a janitor comes and checks his belongings. He finds nothing but a candy tin and, thinking it’s useless to him, throws it in the field. When the tin falls, some remains of burnt bones fall out and Setsuko’s spirit flies out of it.
Seita’s spirit joins her, surrounded by numerous fireflies. Then, they board a train that takes them through their past and they see themselves and their sufferings.
We go back a few months earlier. After being alerted for bombing, their mother leaves for the shelter and as Seita is getting out with his sister after securing necessities, a bomb drops near their house but they get out unscathed. They wait for the bombing to stop and then head to the shelter, which is actually a school, where their mother is.
Seita gets to know that his mother was burned badly in a bombing. She soon dies and the siblings decide to move to a relative’s house. But soon his aunt starts taunting them about being freeloaders and they move into an abandoned shelter near a river. Seita releases some fireflies when Setsuko says she is afraid of the dark. The next day, they see that all the fireflies have died.
Setsuko buries them in a grave, finally asking why the fireflies and her mother had to die. Due to lack of money and food, Setsuko starts suffering from malnutrition. Seita goes to withdraw money from his mother’s account and brings food for her. Setsuko starts hallucinating and after she goes to sleep, she never wakes up.
Seita cremates her and puts her ashes in her candy tin box and carries it around along with a picture of his father. Soon he also dies of hunger at the Kobe train station.
About the Movie
Grave of the Fireflies is an animated film and was released on 16th April 1988 in Japan. The story is based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s semi-autobiographical short story of the same name.
It’s a Studio Ghibli animation, a well-known animation studio responsible for producing movies such as Your Name, Weathering With You, Spirited Away, etc.
Grave of the Fireflies has been ranked as one of the greatest war films and a major work of Japanese animation. It received 12th rank in Total Film’s 50 greatest animated films and was also ranked 10th in Time Out’s "The 50 greatest World War II movies" list.
Movie Review
From the very first scene, you know that the movie isn’t going to end happily. But for me, it kinda did because after all the pain and devastation they faced, Seita and Setsuko were freed from it all and met each other again amongst the fireflies, where there is no war.
The war ended just before their deaths so if they had just a little bit of help, they would’ve been able to see peace. However, that’s not how reality works.
During war, everything from food to medicine becomes limited. It’s only natural for people to become selfish in such times and think about their family first. But their aunt’s behaviour was simply inhumane.
Human decency is required at such difficult times, especially towards small children. The siblings would have lived if she had helped them just a little bit. After all, they were just two orphaned children.
The story is simply brilliant. It shows how war affects the mentality of people and especially children. Since the story is through the perspective of the siblings, we do not see the ongoing war or what’s happening with other people. We only see Seita and his struggles to provide for his sister. War is merely the backdrop of the story.
When they were starving, Seita was advised by a farmer to return to his aunt, but his pride didn’t allow that and as a result his sister died. If he had swallowed his pride and returned, maybe they would’ve survived. But Seita was a child himself after all. He did as well as he could to survive and provide for his sister.
Seita was forced by the reality of war to grow up because he knew that nobody, not even his blood relative, was willing to take care of them. The tears never stop while watching this movie because it depicts such realistic emotions and purity of the two children going through something that no child should ever face.
Fireflies are used to symbolise the lives of Seita and Setsuko because of how short their lifespan is. Setsuko also once said in the movie that the bombs looked like fireflies. Such a devastating thing looked like an innocent firefly in the eyes of a child. That shows the incapability of children to grasp the horrors of war.
The Bottom Line
It’s a captivating movie that shows the fragility of life and is an absolute tear-jerker. So, if you want to sit and cry for a good hour and half (possibly more), then Grave of the Fireflies is a great choice.
The movie is not completely sad. It does have happy moments, but those happy moments make it all the more painful when you know about the children’s emotional pain and the fact that it’s based on a true story, adds to the sadness.
IMDb ratings - 8.5 on 10
Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary
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