Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Continuing my Studio Ghibli marathon, today we'll be looking at their second official film, the tragic tale of Grave of the Fireflies (1988).

SYNOPSIS:
In 1945, near the end of World War II, a 14-year old Japanese boy named Seita and his 4-year old sister Setsuko barely survive a firebombing from American planes.  With their home destroyed and their parents gone, they find themselves fighting for survival in the war-torn ruins of Japan.

REVIEW:
There will be spoilers in this review, mostly because the ending is essentially spoiled from the very first line of the film.  But also, because this film is very dark and tragic, and it's hard to discuss without talking about its plot more in-depth.  This is, without a doubt, the darkest Studio Ghibli film ever made, so beware if you've never seen it.  This is not the happy fantasy world of other popular Studio Ghibli works.

The film opens with a ghostly Seita, mentioning the exact date he died.  We see the lone boy, weak and fading in a public train station as people walk by him, scoffing at the filthy child on the floor.  Later, a station attendant is checking all the small bodies lying around the station. He pokes Seita and comments that he found another dead one. He finds a candy tin on Seita's body, and not being able to open the rusty tin, chucks it outside.  It pops open, spilling cremated ashes on the ground. It's retrieved by a ghostly Setsuko, who meets up with her older brother Seita, and the two board a train together, riding off while snacking on colorful candies from the tin.  The ghosts of Seita and Setsuko appear in a few other random spots throughout the film, watching over their story from afar.

A dying Seita, being denigrated by people in a train station.

The film jumps back in time to the day of the first firebombing and we witness Seita sending his mother off to the bomb shelters while he buries some food and supplies in their backyard.  He grabs a photo of his father, a proud Naval captain who is off fighting the war.  When the air raid sirens go off, Seita picks up his little sister and then runs off as the firebombs drop on their town, narrowly escaping the encroaching flames engulfing his neighborhood.

Firebombs from American planes set the whole city on fire!

He later tracks down his mother in a makeshift hospital, but she's severely injured, with burns covering her whole body.  She dies the next day and is cremated, a fact Seita keeps from his little sister.  He collects her ashes in a box, intent on burying her some day.  He tracks down their aunt in Kobe, who takes them in.  She gives them a place to stay and helps them sell some personal belongings in order to receive their own rations.  She comments how spoiled they are as a military family when Seita returns with the buried food and supplies from the ruins of his old home.  His saved supplies are more luxurious than most families can afford during that time.  He even has a tin of candies, which he gives to Setsuko to snack on.

The tin of candies for Setsuko.

Setsuko starts to annoy the aunt by crying for her mother throughout the nights.  When the aunt suggests going to the hospital with Setsuko to visit their mother, Seita confesses that their mother died shortly after the first firebombing and he didn't want to upset Setsuko with the truth.  The aunt realizes she's stuck caring for the kids; her sister is dead and won't come back to claim them one day.

The longer the siblings live with their aunt, the less gracious she becomes.  With the schools and factories all burned down, Seita has nowhere to go during the days, and his aunt accuses the two siblings of being freeloading burdens, eating them out of house and home at a time when supplies are severely rationed and limited.  She keeps telling Seita to write to other family members in Japan, hoping one of them will be able to take him and his sister in.  But he doesn't know their addresses, so he can't reach anyone.

The aunt and her family, starting to feel the burden of two more mouths to feed.

When Setsuko cries over having porridge multiple times a day and asks for rice instead, their aunt angrily demands that they should just eat separately from that day on.  Rather than apologize for his baby sister and beg forgiveness, Seita uses what little money he has to buy a pot and some dishes of their own, then proceeds to cook for himself and his sister from that day on, using up the few rations they had saved.

Tired of being treated like nothing but a burden by his own aunt, Seita finds a small abandoned mine near a pond and moves there with Setsuko, setting the place up as their new outdoor home.  They're now free to live however they want, without having to deal with society any longer!

Home sweet home...

They collect fireflies at night and let them loose in their mine, admiring all the lights glowing like stars over their head while Seita recounts stories of their father off fighting the war.  The next day, Seita finds Setsuko burying handfuls of dead fireflies outside.  She says she's making a grave for them and mentions that their aunt told her that mother's buried in a grave too.  A teary-eyed Seita promises her he'll take her to their mother's grave one day.  The grave he still hasn't dug, since he still has her ashes in a box in the mine.

Setsuko dealing with her loss via fireflies.

Seita soon discovers that surviving on their own in the wilderness is hard, especially when there's no paid work to be found.  He sells the last of his valuables to afford what little food and supplies he can, then starts stealing from homes and farms to survive.  Ironically, he's grateful for the air raid sirens because it means abandoned homes he can loot before the American planes come.

Setsuko, meanwhile, has a sweat rash that keeps spreading across her body.  Seita does his best to treat it, but it only gets worse.  When he finally gets her to a doctor, he's told it's caused by malnutrition and he just needs to feed her more nutritious food.  Not having any other option, he goes to the bank to withdraw the last of his mother's savings (7,000 yen, roughly $467 at the time).  It's here that he learns that the entire Naval fleet has been sunk and Japan has surrendered.  He realizes his father is also dead.  It's just him and his sister left now.

Upon returning to home, he finds Setsuko lethargic, unable to sit up and barely able to speak.  She weakly offers him dirt balls, insisting that he eat up.  He tells her not to worry, that he's bought her all sorts of nutritious food to eat.  But while Seita prepares her a meal, Setsuko closes her eyes, never to open them again.

Seita trying to feed watermelon to his fading sister, Setsuko.

Seita puts her in a wicker basket with her favorite doll and cremates her, putting her ashes in the empty candy tin she was always carrying around.  The film ends with a ghostly Seita sitting on a park bench, his sister Setsuko going to sleep in his lap with her candy tin, while they look out at a modern city.  Fireflies fill the sky around them.

The ghosts of Seita and Setsuko, watching over the city.

It's been suggested that the fireflies in this film have a double-meaning.  Not only do they represent the fragility of life, but they're also symbolic of the firebombing raids that struck Japan in the later days of WWII.  They also help Setsuko deal with the loss of her mother when she buries the dead fireflies.  And every time we see the two children as ghosts, they are surrounded by fireflies.  The ghosts are always shown in a reddish light, with yellow/orange fireflies all around them, like the firebombs that fell on their home.

My wife and I couldn't stop crying throughout the whole film!  We started it in English because my wife has a hard time paying attention in other languages, but the two siblings didn't sound like kids in the English dub, so we switched back to Japanese where they actually sounded like kids (The director made a point to track down age-appropriate kids to voice the lead roles).  Setsuko was so sweet and heartfelt every time she opened her mouth, it just made her suffering and pain that much more tragic to hear!  It was very difficult to get through this film.

The film is based on a semi-autobiographical short story written in 1967 by Akiyuki Nosaka, which he also titled Grave of the Fireflies.  He and his younger sister survived a WWII firebombing in Japan when they were children, and his short story recounts a lot of his experiences trying to survive the aftermath with her, although she also succumbed to malnutrition.  He wrote the short story as an apology to his kid sister, whose death he blames on himself.  He claimed he wasn't as noble as Seita in his short story, choosing to eat food as soon as he got his hands on it and only regretting not saving more for his sister afterward.  It was a very difficult time to live in, and as proud as he was for having his kid sister look up to him as her sole caretaker, he feels he failed at the role, leading to her eventual death.

Isao Takahata, one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli, was moved by the short story and wrote and directed this film to honor it, feeling it would resonate with Japanese teens and 20-year olds of the '80s, who were born in the decade or two after WWII.  To this day, it's still considered one of the greatest war films of all time.

Isao Takahata insists that this film isn't an anti-war film, but rather the story of a brother and sister living a failed life, isolated from society.  It's meant to explore their tragedy, and the ongoing war in the background is just incidental; a catalyst and driving force for the plot.  However, like his Studio Ghibli partner, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata is anti-war and feared that politicians might use this film to defend the notion of war in order to protect people and their way of life.

Interestingly, this film was released as a double-feature with another Studio Ghibli film: My Neighbor Totoro (1988).  The animated kid's film, created by Hayao Miyazaki, was initially rejected and only got approved for production when it was suggested as a double-feature release with Grave of the Fireflies (1988).  Akiyuki Nosaka, the author of the Grave of the Fireflies short story, financially supported the double-feature production.  Which is fortunate, as My Neighbor Totoro (1988) is an iconic film of Studio Ghibli's.  We'll be reviewing that film tomorrow!

My Neighbor Totoro (1988) inspired the classic logo of Studio Ghibli for decades to come!

There was a live action Grave of the Fireflies film made in 2005, based on the original short story. It was made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII.  Although it retells the story from the point of view of the aunt.  It shows how a kind and caring woman slowly turns bitter and cruel due to the stress of war and her obligation to her sister's kids, and how her lack of sympathy pushes them out the door to their eventual death.  I had never heard of this live action film before; I'll have to track it down and check it out sometime!  There was another live action film made in 2008 as well, but like the anime film, it just focused on the two siblings struggling to survive.

RECOMMENDATION:
This was a tragic tale of struggle and failure.  Not for the faint of heart.  I guarantee, you will be bawling by the end of this film.  But that's not to detract from its story; it's a hard look at life after personal tragedy strikes and the realistic outcome.  There's no fantasy or Ghibli magic to solve everyone's problems here; this is as close to real life as Studio Ghibli gets.  Watch this at your own risk.  Definitely don't show this to the kiddos until they're in their teens or later, especially if they have younger siblings.