150 Word Review: ‘Grave Of The Fireflies’ (1988)
150 Word Review: ‘Grave Of The Fireflies’ (1988)
Warning: This animated classic will wreck you
The firebombs look like fireflies in Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata’s animated 1988 masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies. The incendiary devices falling from above bring death while the summertime lightning bugs call spirits home.
The movie is about two children trying to survive after their mother is killed in a raid. Takahata is not interested in the politics of the Second World War — America was ruthless in its attempts to bring the Japanese Empire to its knees but the details of the conflict are immaterial. All that matters are the orphans. The animation gives the movie a dream-like otherworldliness, even as we watch older brother Seita try to save his sister Setsuko from starvation. There are moments of joy and horror, a lighthearted day at the beach ends with the discovery of a rotting corpse. The darkness of war swallows them both, a pair of lights.