It is a beautiful and horrible tale and I recommend it without reserve. Especially to those who cheer on war from behind their Dells.

There are many things to say about this film, and I had many more words and images ready and yet, halfway through what I was building, I opted to back up and approach this one differently. I will not narrate the entire movie, nor will I lay this out in the exact order, as in the “Shotlist” approach I took to the movie “Falling Down.” Nor will I point out every single nuance of filmmaking. We may say “hey, that’s what you do these for,” but I would rather approach each film differently, according to how it affects me. And even though reading this post will “spoil” some surprises for someone who has never watched the film, I would not roll it all flat and mash it out, even so. That’s not the kind of film this is. Yet, I felt the need to comment on it, mostly as an American watching such a film during the second Iraq war, and probably at the gates to a much wider war across the entire Middle East.

Grave of the Fireflies does not make a political comment on the Allies, or the war at the time, beyond how faceless, cruel, and random War in general can be to civilians (children). One reviewer (Maoist Internationalist Movement), claims this leaves the film mired in “sentimental humanism.” The writer claims the film doesn’t go far enough in denouncing the nationalism that is so often a cause, or supporting force in war.

And it’s true that we see the bitter pieces of broken national pride as Japan realizes—through conversations that take place at the aunt’s dinner table—she is losing this war. But could we really ever expect a film made at such a time by Japan to somehow stand apart from any sense of nationalism?

The point MIM makes is a good point to make in general, to filmmmakers or storytellers, if we care about sending messages that might be most effective doing their part to end war. In the long run. A good point about war narratives, perhaps. And one that could be leveled on any country’s films. Yes, you watch this film and have the sense that Japan is a victim. Clearly, that is because they are losing, but more so because we are seeing through the eyes of hungry children.

And as another reviewer says, ” the experiences of children rarely encompasses political discourse.”

That is exactly why this film is so strong.

All I can say to those who hold the opinion furthered by MIM is that it would be a good idea, I think, for someone to do a sequel and draw the lesson deeper. Or just a restyling of this film into a new story. For example, one could create an animation piece on the Iraqis being bombed by America, and point to America’s persistent national pride, even as hundreds of thousands of families continue to suffer behind an invasion that was 100% unwarranted.

That would be more effective than pointing at the nationalist pride that is both reactionary and inevitable as a survival instinct in those who are being bombed. (Let me tell you about NYC post 9/11 if you want to talk about Nationalist fervor. You couldn’t buy an American Flag anywhere. Everyone was sold out. Even I was pondering whether or not I should join the Marines. No joke.)

Either way, I leave such a project to MIM, or others. Socrates talked about how much easier it is to deconstruct than it is to construct. And as my first film production prof would tell students who began re-writing their peers’ films with their own re-write critiques, “That’s the movie you would have made.” (We learned, in time, not to desire to change entire story lines, but to tell the filmmaker (and learn ourselves, first) how better to implement visually the ideas they actually had intended to demonstrate.)

In Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, we see through the viewpoint of villagers who really are in no way connected to the politics of their country (well, aside from Seita and Setsuko’s father being a soldier, but we do not watch him, nor get his POV), but who do come to know they are losing a war, and so, begin to lose hope, lose kindness, and lose reason.

I suppose the most horrifying and gut-wrenching part of this tale is watching the children starve. This is, of course, an integral part of the theme, for the director underlines the suffering of children in adult matters such as war. First we have the aunt who encourages Seita to sell his mother’s kimono so that there will be rice (and she is notably relieved that she can feed her boarders with Seita’s rice), but who quickly turns cold. The filmmaker shows us how war and suffering can bring out the worst in humans, and how the most fragile of humans are the ones to suffer.

And while at first the villagers maintain some semblance of societal mores, such as tending the wounded after the first bombing we witness—the one that claims Seita’s and Setsuko’s mother—this quickly falls apart. Soon, Seita and Setsuko are but wandering the fringes of the town without food. And even though they are known to be a ”Navy man’s” children, the villagers turn their backs on them. Seita receives the disgust and anger of his aunt, who feels he is not doing enough to help the nation in a time of war. But she is one of those persons in whom we see the worst of a human during a time of cost.

The sentiments about Supporting the Troops come to the American ear now from a different angle. We watch those whose homes are being bombed use these types of slogans. They feel very different when “the troops,” are the ones “defending the homeland”…from us. One of the moments where we see this nationalism is when Seita and Setsuko are gazing at the stars, and Seita begins to miss his father. He begins to envision memories or perhaps just fantasies in the stars (his gradual absorption into the play world of Setsuko progresses as the movie does, and as their situation grows more dire), and he sings a national anthem, or a war anthem. We also hear his aunt talking a lot about his lack of contribution to the national effort.

But in this time, where I sit? I cannot help but transpose these statements over the ones I hear every day. Yes, this nationalism is not only reactionary to a threatened nation, but it is, too, the seed of war. MIM is correct, ideologically. Yet, watching the film as it is, and hearing these familiar nationalist sentiments continues to instruct us, if we consider what we are watching.

The best review I’ve read so far on the film, by one self-dubbed “Appellate Judge Mike Pinsky,” puts
it well, when speaking of the cruel aunt that Seita and Setsuko must first rely upon before fleeing her unwelcoming home:

When Seita’s aunt scolds [Seita] on his uselessness [...] her reaction is that of any ordinary, struggling individual as the war turns sour: her initial patriotic fervor has muted to resentment toward the people she blames for starting it (forgetting, of course, how she and everyone else jumped on the bandwagon when things were going well).

Mr. Pinsky goes on to posit Seita as the “Japanese ego on the brink of collapse, dressed up for a glorious war but not emotionally able to cope with the consequences.” I find that interesting and insightful. I think of some Americans today this could apply to. But to my eye, not knowing enough about Japan, I saw Seita as the archetypal Citizen; a person caught between following in his father’s nationalist footsteps (cheering on war at any cost and for any reason), and tending his sister as a brother and a friend (thinking humanely, being a humanist?). He is not old enough to be a soldier and escape his Aunt’s condemning nationalist prattle, though he rallies with the idea when he feels lost. Yet, he isn’t able to do enough to save his sister (the People), either.

It’s not hard to find reviews that discuss this film as the “most depressing film ever”
or in some other way negatively tag the emotional quality of it. Some people even apparently feel comfortable frothing at the mouth in lengthy and vicious diatribes
against it, and with no other justification aside from the fact that the horrible scenarios (such as Seita speaking to his badly-burned, bandaged, and maggot-ridden mother as she lies bleeding on a cot) and emotion they experienced was yukky, or made them feel yukky. (Unlike Saving Private Ryan?) I can’t see a way around that, if you are going to watch a film made by a nation during a time that it has to come to grips with repeated bombings, shattered families, and starvation. War is not like a video
game to those on the ground. And if it makes you think of human suffering, guess what? You’re beginning to actually think about war. Anyway, I hardly found the maggots to be the most disturbing part of this film. For me, one was Setsuko’s sucking a glass marble and pretending it was candy. But you’ll have to see the whole film to feel that one.

One of the thoughts that kept occurring to me as I watched this. How horrible…wars that only handfuls of people want while the rest have to suffer. You can watch this movie, and tell yourself that bombs on villages are often for a Just Cause. Good luck with that. For me, this becomes very hard to maintain when you travel a narrative with children who suffer because of that bombing. Or when you begin to think of and feel for the Seitas and Setsukos of the entire world. Again, the intent of the director, and I’m sure, the intent of the original book.

Clearly, you will not find me condemning all violence. Nature demands it. Even teeth tearing plant flesh is violence. Our digestive processes are violence. I would not stand idly by and watch someone physically hurt or threaten my family. And some wars
I approve, such as the force that was used against people like Hitler, who brought a greater threat if not checked). But for myself, watching this movie, I could not help but think of Iraq. And Iraq is not WWII, no matter how badly the frustrated Vietnam Hawks in D.C. want it to be, and putting half a million people into their graves does not a Great War make. Forgive me the digression in discussion.

One review of Grave of the Fireflies I read hit upon something I mentioned in my last post; this refocusing of the eyes when in the presence of your very young children (or children at any age). A “Chris Beveridge” wrote that “This particular viewing took on a new twist with me, as it’s the first time I’ve seen the film since my daughter’s was born.” We are, of course, depending on our own situations and worldviews, going to bring a variety of bias to this film, as we do all films and all stories. So perhaps my thoughts above were not such a digression. In fact, following the intent of the director, I would have to say we ought to think as personally about war as we can. In the review I mentioned above, Ms/Mr Beveridge writes about their mother almost being in tears upon only seeing the artwork to the cover of the DVD, and seven years after watching the film.

So, yes. This movie seems to affect people very strongly. I find it heartbreaking. The person I watched it with was in tears. She said that she couldn’t help but think of what we were doing over Iraq and that made it hurt to see a viewpoint from those under the falling bombs, under the gun, from those being invaded. Looking at the planes that Seita ran from. Knowing they were USA planes. She couldn’t stand being in the room when I replayed the film even in pieces, to take notes.

I thought of many things watching Grave of the Fireflies.  I know that there are many who have seen war so much closer than I. I have no experience at all with war. The closest I have come to the carnage shown in this film was, perhaps, when I lived in Manhattan, and the WTC was attacked. That is the event that I think of when I see rubble, smoking building edifices, corpses being extracted from wreckage, smoke-filled frames. Then, too, I think of our “precision strikes” over Iraq. Wedding parties. Children and citizens in heaps. Restaurants. Mass graves. I think of how easy it is for so many of us to reason away the effects of what we have promoted and inflamed and continue to aggravate. and yes, MIM, we do not go far enough with these thoughts. We don’t even go halfway there. And our “leaders” don’t seem to get it at all. To them, war is some dry idea, some Halliburton notion, some political football. It has nothing to do with starving and ailing children who cannot sleep because they miss their mothers. But that, in the end, is what I think of.
 

Children. Of theirs, of ours. I wonder how much longer people will be putting so much energy into killing one another’s children.