Grave of the Fireflies

Stories are dangerous things. Every time we open a book, sit in a darkened theater, or watch a film in the privacy of our own living room, we choose to leave our worlds behind, to become so fully absorbed in the characters that we almost forget ourselves. We spend hours in their skin, rejoicing and weeping with them. In a way, we know them. Whether or not they exist as tangible beings in our world is beside the point – they have become real.

Yesterday I met Seita and Setsuko in the 1988 Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies. I've loved Studio Ghibli for years. Their canon of films has a kind of beauty, strength, and childlike whimsy unlike anything else. Grave of the Fireflies, directed by the studio's co-founder Isao Takahata (friend of Hayao Miyazaki, who created classics such as My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke) absolutely took my breath away. Five minutes into the film, Seita and Setsuko stole my heart. Yes, it sounds cliché, but I can't think of a better way to phrase it. Ten minutes later, I found myself in tears. Even now I can't stop replaying scenes over and over in my head. It will be days until they fade.  

As Japan erupts in a storm of firebombs and ash during World War II, Seita and his little sister Setsuko fight to survive in a place stripped of everything they once knew to be safe. After losing their mother in an air raid, the children are sent to live with their aunt, a harsh woman who chastises them relentlessly and eventually drives them out of the house with her coldness. Left with only each other, the siblings build a home for themselves in an abandoned bomb shelter. Seita does everything he can to provide for himself and Setsuko, but without food or resources, his efforts are not enough to save them.

Takahata makes it clear from Seita's first line (“September 21^st, 1945. That was the night I died.”) that our two small heroes will become casualties of the war. In fact, the opening scene ends with Seita and Setsuko's ghosts leaving an empty train station as symbolic fireflies dot the grass around them. The scene then switches back to the first air raid and the red haze of firebombs and smoke. Yet in the midst of chaos, starvation, and broken villages, the story is full of light. Takahata's depictions of Seita's loyalty and love for Setsuko are beautiful. At the beach, running through the rain, sharing fruit drops at the train station, releasing fireflies under the mosquito net... Seita doing endless flips on the school chin-up bar to coax a smile from his crying sister... Setsuko weeping over Seita's bruises after he is caught stealing sugar cane for her... Lovely scenes, and almost too overwhelming to watch in one sitting.  I had to keep hitting pause because I couldn't see the screen through so many tears.

Grave of the Fireflies is the most powerful war movie I've ever seen. Sitting in front of my laptop, I felt like I was there. I flinched at the sound of sirens, cringed as airplanes droned overhead, and wept with Setsuko as she hunched in the dirt and cried for her mother. This is not a film to be watched on a whim. Although it's a visual masterpiece, it's not meant to be entertainment or a pretty piece of storytelling. It will change you. It should change you. I've heard Grave of the Fireflies described as an anti-war film, but I don't think Takahata's message is as dogmatic or clear-cut as that. The story is powerful not because of what is said, but because of what is left unsaid. Takahata wastes no time preaching, manipulating, or pressing an agenda. He simply shows us the lives of two doomed children caught in the wrong time and the wrong place, and he dares us to love them anyway. We're left to draw our own conclusions. That is, perhaps, the most powerful thing he could have done after all.