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In this animated film from Japan, a teenaged boy tries to take care of his little sister after their mother dies in a bombing by the Americans during World War II. The children’s father is a soldier at sea who never returns and is eventually presumed dead, so the children go to stay with an aunt for a while. But as food becomes rationed and the nation’s nerves become frayed, the heartless aunt grows tired of sharing provisions with her nephew and niece. So the children leave and make a new home for themselves in a crude countryside bomb shelter. They steal produce from local farmers until the farmers become violent with them, and eventually they subsist on whatever fish and frogs they can catch.
At the very beginning of Grave of the Fireflies, we learn these children will die. So the rest of the film is their slow-motion death behind the turned backs of every adult they beg for help. Even though faceless American bombers are the ones who set this tragic story in motion, it’s the Japanese people themselves who finally murder these children — unwilling (arguably unable) to feed or provide for them, even as they starve to death. I wasn’t prepared for the Japanese to be their own enemies in a World War II story, but I suppose it adds a layer of sophistication to the film.
I’ve heard for decades how sad and beautiful this film is. And it is, in places. There’s a simple purity in the storytelling, some truly beautiful imagery, and my heart really pours out for the teen boy as he tries to lift his sister’s spirits through the darkest of times. But this film reminded me of the 2013 Sandra Bullock film Gravity, which I called ‘crisis porn’. The plot is so manipulative, throwing tragedy after tragedy upon these kids, that it almost becomes comical. As harrowing as surviving war must be, I have a hard time believing the Japanese would be so cruel to two children begging for help — that they wouldn’t share what little they had and even lay down their lives to help these kids.
Further infuriating me as I watched this film is the fact that these children are not without options: they have money! A lot of it! But it’s apparently an ‘honor thing’ to leave that money untouched until they know for sure their father is dead. Man, I’m sorry. When your baby sister is literally shitting herself to death from malnutrition-related diarrhea, you go to the bank, you get some money, and you feed her dying ass. By the end of Grave of the Fireflies, all the tragedy feels like self-inflicted wounds, which kills my sympathy for the characters. This point seems to be an intentional one, but it turns an otherwise beautifully-made film into an unnecessarily maddening viewing experience.
Directed by Isao Takahata.