Grave of the Fireflies
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
Writer: Isao Takahata
Editor: Takeshi Seyama
Producer: Ryoichi Sato
Writer: Akiyuki Nosaka
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Italian (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Animated, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-12-07
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Central Park Media Corporation (I) (II)
Movie Reviews of Grave of the Fireflies
Movie Review: Incredible film, a must see
Summary: 5 Stars
I rarely take the time to review movies or any other products that I order online, even if I really like them. But this is a true standout.
This is a tremendous film. It's focus is an aspect of WWII and the use of the atomic bomb that westerners, including myself, have managed to ignore. It concerns the lives of Japanese commoners during and after the war.
Anyway, I am a big tough guy, not prone to emotional displays of any type, but I really cried after this movie. I mean that I cried hard. Blubbered.
The director develops these characters amazingly well. I felt like I knew them and loved them. I felt such pain for them. The idea that kids in Japan really did suffer like that was driven into me. I haven't yet been able to bring myself to watch it again, but everyone should see it once.
Incidentally, Roger Ebert said that this was one of the top 5 war films he's ever seen. Pretty amazing that an animated film makes his list, especially considering the huge number of war films out there.
Summary of Grave of the Fireflies
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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