Grave of the Fireflies (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
by Isao Takahata
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akemi Yamaguchi, Ayano Shiraishi, Rhoda Chrosite, Tsutomu Tatsumi, Yoshiko ShinoharaDirector: Isao Takahata
Cinematographer: Nobuo Koyama
Editor: Takeshi Seyama
Producer: Ryoichi Sato
Writer: Akiyuki Nosaka
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Italian (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: Animated, Collector's Edition, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 159 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-10-08
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Central Park Media Corporation (I) (II)
Movie Reviews of Grave of the Fireflies (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Carefully crafted descent into depression.
Summary: 4 Stars
I noticed some reviewers calling this an anti-war movie. I disagree with that label. War is one of those human occurrences that no movie by itself can be for or against. Different movies show different aspects of war through various characters and this particular movie shows how two people were affected by World War 2. The situation in which the characters find themselves is based on a combination of circumstance and personal choice as most human situations are. The main characcter finds that the personal choice he made, however the noble the reason, had a powerfully negative outcome for someone he loved.
This movie does not really have your standard protagonists and antagonists. It does a very good job of capturing life and the people in it. There are no stereotypes in this movie.
This a movie about a boy that makes a grave mistake during World War 2 after losing his parents and being entrusted to take care of his four year old sister. He doesn't seem to grasp his situation and makes greivous errors in judgment, some because of pride and some because of inexperience due to his youth.
I don't know if this story trully occurred or is a conjuration from a man's imagination that wanted to explore the idea of a youth making such a greivous error in judgment as to leave him hopeless and without a desire to live. I know after watching the movie I could not see any way out for the boy. He was doomed by the end. And much of it because he made a huge number of mistakes that could have been avoided.
That's why I look at this film as the study of a particular character whose path of sorrow begin with a circumstance that occurs all too often in war, but became as dire and hopless as it did because the boy himself made many poor choices including the worst choice of removing himself from the care of society and the people around him.
The most sympathetic character is Setsuko. You will feel for her from beginning to end. You will sympathize some for the brother Seita, but by the end you will wonder why he chose to do what he did.
Since character motivation isn't explained, you are left to believe that it was simply the inexperience of youth and an apathetic society that left these refugees of war wandering without help because everyone was just trying to survive.
I have to say that they didn't even show the boy trying to find help and they didn't show many people offering. His Aunt never kicked him out, he left because of pride. Pride is something you swallow in hard times to do what is needed when you are taking care of a four year old girl.
Ultimately, this is a very well done film. It shows two particular characters in a realistic situation with one of the many outcomes that can occur in this type of situation. It isn't the outcome anyone wants to believe occurs, but it is one that does occur.
I have to warn anyone looking to watch this film: this is a story carefully crafted to emotionally manipulate you in a very dark way. It is not to make you happy or to believe in hope, but to emotionally shatter you. If you invest in these characters. If you start to love the happy little girl and her older brother. If you start cheering for them, then you will be socked in the gut at the end of this film. You have to believe that there is a happy afterlife where they are reunited and relieved of wordly suffering to even have a remotely hopeful feeling when you finish this film.
This is the most depressing film I have ever watched, even more depressing than most holocaust films since at least there is an evil you can hate and sometimes triumph. In this film there is no evil to hate, there is no hero at the end, there is no happiness, there is just one of the most negative outcomes that can occur during a war and a boy and girl that suffer it. I'll never watch this film again. But if you want to watch a very well done film that will take you straight in the depths of depression, then this is the film for you.
Any artist's desire is to move you in some way. Some to make you laugh or excite you or make you cry or some mix of many emotions. This film is meant to crush you emotionally. The filmmaker and writer were successful in that regard. I just don't to want to watch a soul crushing, depressing film all too often. Once is enough.
Summary of Grave of the Fireflies (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
Isao Takahata's powerful antiwar film has been praised by critics wherever it has been screened around the world. When their mother is killed in the firebombing of Tokyo near the end of World War II, teenage Seita and his little sister Setsuko are left on their own: their father is away, serving in the Imperial Navy. The two children initially stay with an aunt, but she has little affection for them and resents the time and money they require. The two children set up housekeeping in a cave by a stream, but their meager resources are quickly exhausted, and Seita is reduced to stealing to feed his sister.The strength of Grave of the Fireflies lies in Takahata's evenhanded portrayal of the characters. A sympathetic doctor, the greedy aunt, the disinterested cousins all know there is little they can do for Seita and Setsuko. Their resources, like their country's, are already overtaxed: anything they spare endangers their own survival. As in the Barefoot Gen films, no mention is made of Japan's role in the war as an aggressor; but the depiction of the needless suffering endured by its victims transcends national and ideological boundaries. --Charles Solomon
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