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Classic Film Club: Grave of the Fireflies
Each week Tom Huddleston watches a classic film he's never seen before. The rules are simple: each film must be considered a masterpiece and each must be completely new to him. This week: Isao Takahata's 'Grave of the Fireflies'
Having contributed to Time Out’s recent countdown of the 50 Greatest World War 2 Movies , it seemed timely to dedicate this column to the Studio Ghibli-produced ‘Grave of the Fireflies’. Ghibli’s work – most notably that of its ageing founder Hayao Miyazaki – is now well known, particularly since ‘Spirited Away’ won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2002. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ was the fourth film the studio produced, and the first to be directed by someone other than Miyazaki. Isao Takahata’s career as an animation writer-director stretched back even further than his producer’s to the early days of anime on television. But this film was informed not by his working life, but by his experiences as a ten-year-old in war-torn Japan.
Although it has become routine for graphic novels to address dark, grown-up subjects such as war and genocide, animators are still wary of crossing that unspoken boundary. Perhaps it’s simply that very few adult cartoons have ever been a success: ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Heavy Metal’ and ‘When the Wind Blows’ may be fondly remembered, but none set the box office alight. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not exactly grown-up cinema: its central characters are children, its viewpoint unmistakeably childlike. But the topics it explores – war, exploitation, sickness, starvation and death – and the detail in which it explores them, mean that the film would be at least alienating – if not deeply disturbing – to the average child.
Takahata’s characters are doomed from the outset. The film opens with the image of a 12-year-old boy, Seita, begging on the streets, his head sinking between his bony knees, and a single line of voiceover: ‘September 21, 1945… that was the night I died.’ We watch as Seita’s spirit leaves his body and is reunited with four-year-old Setsuko, his dead sister, before flashing back to the early days of the war, where the main body of the story unfolds: Seita and Setsuko lose their mother in an American bombing raid, and are forced into the care of a neighbour, and finally to fend for themselves. This opening is a statement of intent. By alerting us to the fact that both his characters will die, Takahata is warning his audience. This is not a wartime adventure, or a nostalgic childhood reminiscence. This is a requiem for the dead, with all the sombre ceremony that that demands. There are moments of joy in ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, particularly as the two siblings escape from their selfish, exploitative aunt and learn to fend for themselves in the woods, a bucolic interlude that recalls numerous idyllic moments from childhood tales stretching back to ‘Tom Sawyer’, most particularly Elem Klimov’s superficially similar Russian-front tragedy ‘Come and See’. But every one of these fleeting moments is overshadowed by the constant knowledge that death is coming, and the more we grow to like the characters, the weightier and more unfaceable that knowledge becomes.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is perhaps unique in that the medium of animation in no way softens the events of story. In fact, the opposite is true. Animation allows Takahata to draw performances from his children that no human of equal age could or should be expected to give. His treatment of little Setsuko results in arguably the most realistic four-year-old in cinema, simultaneously curious and wary, playful and serious, exploring her place in the world just as that world is beginning to fall apart. The older Seita feels withdrawn by comparison, though this decision feels wholly intentional and appropriate. This is a boy torn between childhood selfishness and societally imposed feelings of obligation, whose only point of focus becomes the sister he cannot save. And the scenes of Setsuko’s gradual decline would be simply impossible in a live-action context as it would be unwatchable, and with good reason.Visually, the film hews close to the established Ghibli palette, with motionless, often rather crude backgrounds and blurred upfront action. Takahata makes the most of these limitations – often focusing on characters faces in moments of grief or stillness, using the stillness of his backdrops to suggest a blank, unknowable world beyond their grasp – but they remain limitations.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not a film to be taken lightly. It is not even a film to be enjoyed. It is a film which demands – and deserves – total concentration and emotional surrender. The reward is an experience unlike any other: exhausting, tragic and utterly bleak, but also somehow monumental.
Author: Tom Huddleston
User comments on this story
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- Jimbob said...
- I blubbed like a baby by the end and I am not prone to it! There are always going to be people out there who see a barrier in animation, preventing them from connecting with the world being portrayed, but that is a personal shortcoming for them to deal with. Like Thea, I would not relish seeing it again but that in no way detracts from a piece of work that I rate amongst my most important movies. Posted on Mar 04 2011 09:48
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- Soup RObot said...
- @SR I'm not sure I agree with you that these movies require, "an adult mind to appreciate them fully". Obviously the way as adults we go into these films is to look at them far more analytically and interpret what is being said to us however for children there is an immediacy to these stories. We look at "Spirited Away" and recognise a turning point in a childs life, the steps of growing up but just because they don't offer the simplicity and traditional narrative of a disney film for example does not mean they are lost on children. I used to work at a school and we used to put SPirited Away and the kids would sit there silently in wonderment, completely absorbed in the world and characters and ideas offered in front of them. Studio Ghibli might not stylistically be the way we assume a childrens film is constructed (and I don't mean this as a slant on Hollywood because a lot of Japanese kids films are done like this too) but none the less it talks to kids in a way that is equally profound. Posted on Dec 22 2009 15:47
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- SR said...
- @EY: The only thing Pixar movies have in common with Grave of the Fireflies is that they are both animated. Animation has reached a point I think where it is no longer a genre ('kids' stuff') but simply a different medium through which to tell the story. Movies like Wall-E, Grave of the Fireflies, Spirited Away and even the rather whimsical Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea deal with grown-up themes and demand an adult mind to be appreciated fully, and to a higher degree than the average live-action fare we are presented with. Pixar's great strength is that they manage to convey these adult themes and wrap them into a form which is hugely enjoyable for children as well. They must be sublimely talented for doing this again and again and again, as reviews clearly show. As for Grave of the Fireflies, it's tough material to handle but a rich addition to any film fan's experience. Posted on Dec 09 2009 11:41
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- Cliff said...
- (responding to Jane Kennedy's post) If you're referring to the film comics (like the ones printed for Spirited Away that uses stills from the film itself), . . . not in English; some were published in Japanese around the time of the film's release, but they haven't been translated. I'm not even certain the original novel that this film was based on was translated into English (apparently, it was released in German). Posted on Dec 07 2009 23:34
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- jane kennedy said...
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Just wondered if anyone knew if there was a animated book version of the film in English.
Thanks Posted on Dec 04 2009 01:59 - Report as inappropriate
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- EY said...
- Deeply sad and harrowingly beautiful, if only all animation films could attempt to be as meaningful and involving and demanding of the viewer as this. Sick of all the infantilization of all those Pixar retarded movies. A good recomendation for anyone that appreciated this film, even if it's not a film but a comic book, is the two Maus books by Art Spiegelmann. Posted on Nov 13 2009 13:10
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- Emilie said...
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I've seen this film once years ago, but still remember some of the scenes vividly. It tackles a grave and upsetting subject very sensitively -children, innocent and utterly vulnerable victims of war- and is also some of the most beautiful animation I have seen. As Thea said, a masterpiece (which I would "gladly" see again).
PS If you are interested in the subject, watch another masterpiece, Germany Year Zero by Roberto Rossellini. Posted on Nov 06 2009 17:15 - Report as inappropriate
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- Thea said...
- It’s heavy, it’s not something you can watch all over again. It’s a masterpiece. Posted on Oct 29 2009 08:44
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- James said...
- It is interesting to note that this was originally released as a double bill with My Neighbour Totoro, perhaps Miyazaki's most delightful and uplifting film about childhood. Two more emotionally contrasting movies would be hard to find and it shows the genius of the Ghibli team that they could make these two films simultaneously. Posted on Oct 27 2009 00:17
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