For those of you who haven't been following this year's blog theme I'm watching Studio Ghibli movies. Studio Ghibli is known for their charming stories with whimsical and fantastical settings that take your breath away. However, Ghibli also has a very melancholy and dark side that a lot of fans of the studio have a tendency to judiciously overlook. That rather depressing side of an otherwise lighthearted animation studio is made manifest in the movie Grave of the Fireflies and as far as sad movies are concerned this one takes the cake.
I first saw Grave of the Fireflies when I was roughly nine years old at my friend's house. I got away with seeing a lot of movies and TV shows that I wouldn't have otherwise seen at this particular friend's house but I honestly wonder how I ever got away with this one. It's probably because the movie is animated that it was initially branded as a harmless thing to exploit a child to. And this movie is the number one example I site when explaining to people why animation is not a medium that should be relegated strictly to the realm of childish entertainment. It is a very serious film that details with very serious ideas and it is unforgiving in its presentation of those ideas.
Here's a brief synopsis of the movie:
Two children are living in Tokyo with their mother during WWII. Their father is in the navy and is stationed on a ship somewhere in the Pacific. The children get separated from their mom during a firebombing raid. Shortly thereafter the mom dies from the severity of her burn wounds during the raid and the children are shipped off to distant relatives that they barely know and who are not at all pleased to have two extra mouths to feed.
The older of the two children is a boy, about 12 years old. He struggles to take care of his little sister and due to constant antagonisms from the woman they're living with decides to move his sister into an abandoned shelter/storage area positioned next to a lake. This is where things get really hard for the two kids. Food becomes harder and harder to come by, especially for two kids living "off the grid" and the boy resorts to stealing food and raiding people's houses in order to take care of his little sister. Eventually he learns that his father has died in an attack some months earlier. Then his little sister dies of starvation and he follows shortly thereafter.
The End.
Is everyone good and depressed now?
Listen, my intention with this particular post is not to bum everyone out (although that will probably be a side effect) but I have a couple of things to point out that I've learned from this movie.
1. Animation is a very powerful medium that is significantly undervalued.
Because a character is being presented as abstract (i.e. animated) and not tangible (i.e. live-action) it creates a sense of universality. The kids in Grave of the Fireflies could be anyone, they can more easily be related to children that you personally know. And this story is an unfortunately common one for citizens of war torn countries.
Not to mention since animation is a medium that is usually relegated to the realm of children's entertainment it works well to heighten the horror of the story. Think about the juxtaposition: a terrible war story told through a child's medium. It works incredibly well to elevate the sorrow of the film.
2. War effects everyone.
I think popular media has worked well to give us the impression that war only effects the army, or those people that deserve it. But that is hardly the case. The opposing army is only a fraction of the people involved in a war. Every soldier fighting on the front lines has a mother and father and many of them have children and spouses. Those people not only have to deal with the absence of a family member but they also have to worry about their own safety, where their next meal is coming from, where they're going to sleep at night. And what happens to the children when the parents aren't there to take care of them?
I don't mean to sound so despairing about all of this but I'm an American and these are issues my country has only had to deal with minimally. We're an amazingly blessed nation that has never been invaded and has only minutely had to deal with war caused disasters on our own turf. Very few of us have seen what sort of effect this level of conflict can have on a community. I would say it's fair to compare America as a nation to a teenager: we think we're invincible, the world is our oyster, we have a very optimistic perspective on the future, etc. All of these things are really great but I would say that as a whole we are also a very naive country. We think we know everything but on the grand scale we haven't experienced much.
Now, I'm not saying America deserves to be invaded so that we can see what it's like from the other side. No one ever deserves that. Ever. And I'm not saying we shouldn't have entered into conflict with Japan during WWII. I'm just saying we should maybe be a bit more prudent in why we're picking a fight with someone.
Anyways, I would not recommend showing this movie to any nine year-olds that you might know. But if you are an adult reading this blog post and you haven't seen this movie yet I would recommend that you watch it. Not so much for entertainment value (does anyone every consider movies like this entertaining?) but possibly to give some extra perspective and compassion. And maybe raise the question of what it means to go to war.
Good thing the next movie Studio Ghibli came out with after this one was My Neighbor Totoro!
Oh, and as an extra note: this is my 50th blog post. So hurrah for me! It only took 3ish years to get here.
