Grave of the Fireflies opens on an evening in 1945, after Japan's surrender at the end of World War II; and in a train station, the young Seita dies alone. The rest of the movie tells us, in flashback, how things have come to this. Seita and Setsuko are two young Japanese children growing up in the waning days of World War II. Much to Seita's pride, their father is in the Japanese navy, and they live fairly content lives in Kobe despite rationing and the other privations of war. When their mother dies from burns suffered during an American fire-bombing raid, a distant aunt takes them in -- and conflict eventually forces the children to try to survive on their own. At first, Seita and his little sister enjoy their idyllic lives in the country, but harsh reality eventually settles in as Seita begins to understand the difficulties of taking care of a young child when both food and compassion are scarce. ~ Emru Townsend, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
loved it.
With very little in the way of action or combat scenes, Grave of the Fireflies is easily one of the most harrowing and riveting war movies ever made. Based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Grave of the Fireflies is an examination of the horrors that war can inflict, even far away from the battles between soldiers. At the same time, it's a heartfelt look at a bond between a brother and sister that can't be broken, even by death. Like Keiji Nakazawa's autobiographical
Barefoot Gen, Grave of the Fireflies is remarkable in that it clearly and sympathetically presents the victims of American actions on Japanese civilians, yet never veers into finger-pointing or national shame. Rather, the movie is an indictment of selfish civilian behavior during wartime, and an admonishment against the wars that create these conditions in the first place. It's interesting to note that in Japan, the movie was originally double-billed with
Hayao Miyazaki's postwar fable
My Neighbor Totoro. ~ Emru Townsend, All Movie Guide