I think part of my hesitancy was the hard facts of the plot—two children, a brother and sister, try to survive the aftermath of air raids in war-torn WW2 Japan, only to die of starvation. It sounds so stark, and the movie is rough and intense at times, but there are also so many moments of beauty and courage and joy. It is haunting and tragic and poetic. True art. I am glad I finally made myself watch Grave of the Fireflies.
There are so many wonderful scenes—Two little fireflies meander their way across the screen, their other companions dead or dying, foreshadowing the chidrens' fate and what has happened to their friends and neighbors in Kobe. Like the incandescent fireflies, the lives of Seita, the older brother, and Setsuko, his younger sister, appear brief and aimless. When a group of young boys discover their home—the siblings have been camping in an abandoned bomb shelter—they run around, poking fun at the meager traces of their existence, but the children are unseen, nowhere to be found, as if they were already ghosts. Setsuko's lifeless doll is often shown lying on a bed or the ground, her color gradually fading.
The film is also a fairytale of sorts—the wicked witch/stepmother is an aunt who wants to steal food from the newly-orphaned children and send them out into the world to starve. People they encounter, like the farmer, or the doctor, who should be helpful, instead are just a hindrance, similar to the unhelpful dwarf in Snow White and Rose Red. There are a few sympathetic people, who at least understand their predicament, but this little Hansel and Gretel will never make it out of the woods.
As I was waching I kept wondering why Seita didn't just go get his mother's money out of the bank and buy them food earlier. But he was living in a nightmare fantasy world—the expectation of grown-ups helping him; of their home, the magical cave of the fireflies, being a safe haven; of their father coming to rescue them. When Seita finally pulls himself together to accept how ill his little sister is, it is too late. Setsuko is already too far gone on the path to starvation. It is clear from the montage we see while she is slowly dying and Seita is returning with food, that she has been left alone too much while her brother has tried to navigate this strange new world. A small starving child, left alone to put inappropriate things like rocks and buttons—anything—in her empty little stomach.
Grave of the Fireflies was based on the real-life experiences of Akiyuki Nosaka and his feelings of guilt at the death of his sister. It is amazing to me, and uplifting, to watch how hard Seita tries to make his little sister happy, to give her some joy, in the midst of all the horror that surrounds them. Unfortunately, it is also this escape from reality that he tries to provide that dooms them. It is tragic.
The first few moments of the film reveal that Seita has starved to death. The rest of the film is a flashback of sorts—memories of his parents, his sister. We don't really see how he got to the train station where he died all the way from the countryside where his little sister died, but it doesn't matter. Their lives and deaths tell forgotten stories of the human fallout of war. Of two vulnerable orphans left to fend for themselves in a world where there is no place for them.
The dvd had some extras which added poignancy—especially commentary by a pre-cancer thumbs-uppin' Roger Ebert. Like the children in the film, he can't go home again, but his words and ideas can still touch us. He points out in his interview that even though it is clearly the United States that is causing the specific devastation in the film, the country is never named, except as "the enemy." This helps the film to be viewed more as a universal comment on what happens to the innocent in a conflict. It was probably through Ebert's recommendation that I first heard of Grave of the Fireflies
, years ago. It took me a while, but I'm so glad I took his advice.
3 comments:
(Just chiming in, here, in general agreement with what you say.)
I grew up with the family stories of life in the Japanese internment camps. That war gave my mother wisdom and a deep knowledge of how people behave, especially under duress. She was only a high school senior when the war began, her younger sisters were about fourteen and five; some of the situations in Grave of the Fireflies have analogues in her experiences. She, like her mother and the middle sister, spent the war protecting that littlest sister and shielding her from the realities. Perhaps that is one reason the film hit me as hard as it did: essentially, this is exactly what Seita is trying to do.
When watching the film, it is worth keeping in mind the historical context. By this time, Japan was in dire straits, and in great fear. (People were committing suicide, after all, because of horror stories of what the American soldiers were like.) Helping others could mean your own family starved. That sort of situation can bring out the worst in people -- as well as the best. And only if you are yourself in such a situation do you find out which way you'd go. At what point can you no longer afford altruism? It is hard to sympathize with the unhelpful adults in the film, but it is equally hard to blame them unreservedly and think them totally heartless. The adults were traumatized, too. Sometimes cruelty masks great depth of pain and helplessness and fear. Seita is too young to see or understand this (and why should he, given the consequences to him and Setsuko?), and the whole story is viewed through his memory. The viewer only knows what he knows.
Poor Seita ... just a child, not even in his teens yet, and in shock and withdrawal. The city has been fire-bombed, his mother is dead, he's alone, nothing but nothing in his life has prepared him for any of this. He is a child in need of grown-up protection and guidance in a world where the grown-ups are desperately trying to protect their own. And his own life revolves around keeping the full truth of their situation from his sister -- which also helps hide the full truth from himself. By the time he pulls himself together enough (grows up enough, really), it's too late.
One point I'm not sure was made in the extras that came with your DVD (mine came from Japan and has no extras), but which enriches the experience (I think), is that fireflies are traditionally viewed as symbolic of impermanence, and of the soul. Those are souls you see flitting about ...
Wikipedia actually has a pretty good analysis of this aspect of the film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies
I completely agree with you, too. I was reacting to the tragedy of the youth of both of the children, and appreciating Seita's attempt at fantasy, while realizing in horror at what that meant for the two of them. Not that it would have ended any differently, regardless.
Thanks for the firefly link/explanation. I did on some level, take that scene that way. That the fireflies were all the poor souls who would burn out so quickly.
When I originally heard about this movie I just assumed (wrongly) it was about Hiroshima, as that is the story that we are most familiar with. I've of course heard about the internment caps but not personal stories, just history squibs. The fire-bombing/fireflies imagery made this film so much deeper and poetic. Japan wasn't hit just by "the bomb". Or, war isn't just about that final battle that whatever side wins. It's an onslaught, with very real consequences for very real people. And the weak, or those who can't care for themselves, are truly lost.
If Seita had not had a kindly, sheltered life, he might have fared much better. Or, possibly, if he'd been alone. But the combination of a too-young, too-innocent Seita and the responsibility for the little girl was ... well, about as tragic as it gets. And it's just as well you know at the beginning what will happen, even if you don't necessarily understand what's going on immediately.
It's a very, very powerful film, and, as you now know, it will break your heart if it is not made of stone. Perhaps I shall try to watch it again this weekend ... so many of the details are now vague in my memory. I haven't seen it since that first time, a decade ago; every time I tried, I couldn't get past the first scene.
I don't think anyone who experienced that war (perhaps any war) directly ever got over it.
BTW, were you aware it was released as a double feature with Totoro? A remarkable pairing ...
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