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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Innocents Abused

Film: Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

If you’re of the “animation is just for kids crowd,” you’ve picked the wrong day to come to this website. Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies) is about as far from a kids movie as one can get. The film opens with the line, “September 21, 1945. That was the night I died.” You’re not going to get a happy ending from that. I knew going in that this was going to be a rough ride and even then, I’m not sure I was fully prepared for the emotional flensing that is Hotaru no Haka. Don’t for a moment think that this means it isn’t a great film. It is; it’s not specifically an enjoyable film, but it deserves to be spoken in the same sentences as films like All Quiet on the Western Front, Idi i Smotri, and Jeux Interdits.

What the opening means is that we know where this film is going. When we flashback to the effective start of the story (the bulk of the film is told in flashback) and meet our two protagonists, we already have a good sense of their eventual fate. Seita is a teenaged boy, probably about 15, who lives with his mother and his young sister Setsuko, who is four or five. Their father is a member of the Japanese navy and is fighting the war. The story opens at the beginning of an air raid, a massive firebombing of the city of Kobe. The kids’ mother heads to a shelter, but the kids are caught out in the bombing, but manage to get through it. Their mother, however, is horribly burned and soon dies.

The kids head to a nearby town where their aunt lives. She takes them in, but as food becomes more and more scarce, she begins to resent the addition of two additional mouths to feed and no additional income from the two children. Despite Seita providing her with all of the food he has managed to keep or scrounge and his selling of his mother’s possessions, she continues to complain about the children, and does not object when they strike off on their own, moving into an abandoned bomb shelter.

It is here that the film gets its name. The children use fireflies for light in the bomb shelter, but the insects do not live through the night. In reaction to this, Setsuko buries them, and struggles with the concept of why the insects, and their mother, were killed. Eventually out of food, Seita is forced to steal from nearby farms and to loot homes during air raids, but the food he collects is never enough. Desperate, he takes his ailing sister to a doctor, who informs him that Setsuko is dying of malnutrition. The doctor offers no help. In desperation, Seita empties the family bank account, but learns that Japan has surrendered and, since the bulk of the Japanese navy lies at the bottom of the Pacific, that his father is almost certainly dead.

It doesn’t get any happier from here. We know from the start of the film that Seita does not survive the narrative, and we also know that he does not have Setsuko with him in his moment of extremis. That what happens is a foregone conclusion does not in any way detract from the emotional suckerpunch of seeing it in front of us.

Hotaru no Haka is one of the most emotionally ripping films I have experienced. For those who are of the opinion that an animated film cannot carry the emotional gravitas of live action, I can only shake my head. Its emotional impact is on a level with the films I mentioned above--Idi i Smotri and Jeux Interdits come to mind immediately. There is no lessening of this power because the children depicted are cartoon characters. They don’t act like cartoons. They act like kids and they sound like kids. The dubbed version of the film is decent, but the true emotional impact of this is felt in the original Japanese version. Ayano Shiraishi, who voices Setsuko, is poignant and brilliant throughout.

There are plenty of films in which terrible things happen that do not affect me as strongly as does this one. There’s a reason that I mentioned the films in the previous paragraph that I did—they share not only the anti-war theme of this film, but also the extremely important element of the victims of that war being innocents. There is something particularly awful about the loss and destruction of innocence. We want these kids to have normal lives and we know from the start that it’s not going to happen. All we can do is watch their slide down to their eventual destruction.

There are moments of lightness, of course. There have to be. The fireflies, which float through any number of scenes, are an obvious metaphor for the brief but beautiful lives of these two kids. Just as important is the tin of fruit pastilles that starts as a connection to their lives and ends the film as so much more.

It’s heartwrenching. It’s also beautiful and tragic and gorgeously animated. Hotaru no Haka is the definition of a “must-see” film.

Why to watch Hotaru no Haka: One of the great anti-war films ever made.
Why not to watch: It’s wrist-slittingly depressing.

13 comments:

  1. This is almost the "go-to" film for when people say "All anime is the same; I don't like anime." It's not all fantasy or weird or giant robots. And the genres and animation styles are so vastly different that to say "I don't like anime" is equivalent of saying "I don't like movies."

    But yeah, this one is insanely depressing, but beautiful.

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  2. My objection to a lot of anime, as we've discussed, is that the "demons and giant robots" variety doesn't often come with a lot of exposition. A lot of prior knowledge that I don't have is simply assumed. I feel like there's a cultural divide that I can't breach. Additionally, I tend to dislike some of the cutesy-pie animation and comic relief characters.

    Grave of the Fireflies doesn't suffer from these problems.

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  3. Given that I'm currently battling my way through a somewhat unexpected bout of springtime depression, I honestly don't think I'll watch this movie this week for the club. I don't think I can handle it this week. I'll watch it eventually, and submit my review then. But not now.

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    1. There's a reason I haven't watched it until there was a metaphorical gun put to my head.

      There's also a reason you can expect a review of Fast Times at Ridgemont High in a few days. After this, I need it.

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  4. Steve, this movie is the answer to the big question "What's the last movie that made you cry?" That isn't a frequent occurrence, but this one was just too much, especially since our daughter was just a bit younger than Setsuko at the time. Not sure I'll be watching this again, but it's a great filmmaking achievement.

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    1. It is, and the tears come unbidden on this one, don't they? I challenge anyone to not at least get a lump in the throat in the last 10 minutes.

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    2. I'll be honest--I didn't cry. Not sure I came close. But i almost never cry at movies.

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    3. I didn't quite, but I did choke up.

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  5. My favourite animated movie! Ive been meaning to write about it for some time but I haven't had the courage to put myself through it again. I was a blabbering mess after first time.

    In case of animated films, it often feels like subject matter demands that medium e.g. I don't think Wall-E would have been equally great Live action film. In this case, I feel like it was more of a choice than necessity. I can imagine it being just as good as Live-action and I love that about it.

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    1. I agree completely, although casting a very young child who could pull off the role of Setsuko would be extremely difficult. As it is, Ayano Shiraishi's voice work is incredible. I'm not sure that this is a role any child of that age is capable of acting.

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  6. "Hotaru no Haka is one of the most emotionally ripping films I have experienced. For those who are of the opinion that an animated film cannot carry the emotional gravitas of live action, I can only shake my head."

    I completely agree. Whenever someone says to me that animation is only for kids I always recommend this movie to them. Like I wrote in my comment for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I can acknowledge how good this film is precisely because of how much it affected me. I'm pretty sure I've been one of the ones saying to you how depressing I found this film, but also how great it is.

    What made it ever sadder for me is that the kids' ultimate outcome was probably preventable. Yes, the aunt made it miserable for them there, but once the brother finds out that his sister needs better food he needed to swallow his pride and go back to the aunt for help. She might have refused it, but she might not have.

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    1. True, but his actions are entirely believable for a kid of that age. Seriously, the aunt should have never let him leave, or at least never let him take Setsuko with him.

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