There’s certain films that really make you feel great about life. Huddling around the fire, watching the ending to “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas day just gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that only that type of film can give you. The opposite is also true. A film can make you feel so sad and depressed that you start to question if humanity is fundamentally good or evil? “Grave of the Fireflies” does exactly that. If “12 Years a Slave” made you feel bad for being white, then this film makes you feel bad just for being human.
Coming from one of my favourite studios, Studio Ghibli, “Grave of the Fireflies” also has the distinction of being brought out as a double feature with another Ghibli heavyweight, “My Neighbour Totoro.” If you ever wanted to see what the two ends of the emotional spectrum looked like in film form, then look no further then this pairing. “My Neighbour Totoro” might just be the sweetest, most kind-hearted film ever made. Everything about just oozes child-friendly. “Grave of the Fireflies” is about the horrors of the 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just let that sink in. Complete opposites films, but absolutely beautiful in their own right.
The story really only focuses on two characters, but that’s all they need to completely break you, trust me. Enter brother and little sister pair, Seita and Setsuko. They live in Japan in 1945, which is a very bad year if you even have a vague idea of military history. They live with their mother who we really don’t get to know because she becomes a victim of those events in 1945. As a result, they’re sent to live with their Aunt who isn’t the nicest of people, and ends up just making a bad situation worse. Seita and Setsuko go find an abandoned air raid shelter to live in, and that is where the story starts its most heart-wrenching scene.
That synopsis is very brief for a reason. If I describe it in any more detail you will not want to see the film. It’s a showcase of humanity at its worst. World War II had a lot of atrocities, but one of the worst was the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. This film shows what those bombs did. It’s dark, it’s depressing, it’s hard to watch, but much like the nuclear bombings, it’s hard not to take an interest. A strong point that’s seen in all of Studio Ghibli’s films is they way they can draw you in by making even the most ridiculous concepts (see “Porco Rosso”), seem oddly human and relatable. As you can imagine when they take possibly one of the most serious topics in war crimes, then they can really hit home on the emotional front. The film starts out incredibly depressing and just hammers it even further for the entire runtime. By the time the credits roll, you’re an emotional husk of your former self from just 90 minutes ago. This is what the film will do to you, and you know what – I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Every Ghibli film shares one quality despite their differences, and that’s the animation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the animation is as close to perfect as you can get. Every ounce of emotion is captured with the simple stroke of an artist’s hand, and you feel the pain that Seita and Setsuko feel despite the fact that these are just drawings. The power of animation is evident in “Grave of the Fireflies.” There are very few, if any, films that can measure themselves against the emotional depth of this gem. There isn’t anything fancy about it; a lot of it is very minimalist on the style front, the music front, and the voice-over front. Nothing about it screams, “We want attention.” It has a message to deliver and it delivers in the coldest way possible.
By all means, watch this movie. Yes, it will depress you. Yes, you need to focus when watching it. Yes, it’s completely worth it to view one of the most harrowing films ever conceived.
