Day 73 火垂るの墓 (Grave of the Fireflies) [1988]
Screenplay Isao Takahata
Based on ‘Grave
of the Fireflies’ by Akiyuki Nosaka
Director Isao
Takahata
Cinematography Nobuo
Koyama
Music Michio
Mamiya
Production Studio Ghibli
IMDb 8.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes 97%
Harrowing. Depressing. Heart-breaking. It is not
an easy watch and it is not necessarily what you would expect from the mystical
Studio Ghibli. I watched it with a hangover on a Sunday morning which was a
mistake and we nearly put something else on. However, by the end I had tears in
my eyes and I was happy to have watched this film based on the
semi-autobiographical short story of a young boy Seita and his little sister
Setsuko in World War 2 Japan. The story is not political or focused on the war
itself, despite being called a war film. Instead we follow Seita and Setsuko
moving from house to house after their home is bombed and their mother dies
from burns after a bombing. They eventually end up living in an abandoned bomb
shelter by a lake. It is idyllic at first, but the children begin to starve as
they fall out of the rationing system. Setsuko begins to suffer from
malnutrition and Seito is forced to withdraw all his mother’s savings from the bank,
so he can feed them. Whilst there, he learns his father is likely dead as the Japanese
navy has been destroyed. He returns to the shelter to cook a meal for Setsuko
but she dies whilst he is preparing it. There is then a soul-destroying
sequence where we see a happy Setsuko playing all around the shelter, it was at
this point I remembered it is based on a true story and I realised how sad
their story really was. Every scene is like a painting, it is beautiful,
beautiful animation. And yet the first half of the film is full of brutal war
scenes, dead bodies and fiery orange imagery of bombing runs. It is shocking as
animation so rarely shows such vivid portrayals of horror. The only bad thing
about the movie is the annoying US voice over, which doesn’t translate very
well. Otherwise, it’s a masterpiece.
Acting N
/ A
Writing 3.5
/ 4
Cinematography 4
/ 4
Music 3
/ 4
HWF
rating 3.5 / 4