Review:

-Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies" is heartbreaking not because it embodies death, but because it glorifies life. In all its guises and unique realism it is foremost a dramatic triumph; told in painstaking detail and with an eminent will to press on in the darkest of hours. Like abstract pieces of art it confuses and frustrates at the same time it astonishes.

Few worthy images of film making seep their way into my psyche like the ones in Grave of the Fireflies. With the great humanity of its privileges of artistry and technology, arises some of the most sublime and profound of cinematic images. Young "Seita" and "Setsuko", our heros of the story (and they are indeed, heros in every sense of the word) are parked outside the ill-stricken confines of a local school; which has unfortunately fallen parrade to ions of corpses and broken hearts. However, none arguably as devastating as the two children.

So compasionate, charismatic and brave is 14-year old "Seita", so much so that he's perhaps not even aware of it yet. And alas, how could he ever be; his life of work is so unfortunately tarnished. This alone is the thriving quality of Takahata's film. The individual and rousing journey of a very young humanitarian. Seita, as a young boy coming of age in wartime doesn't ask for much. Only something as tiny as some humble amounts of food for his younger sister Setsuko.

I was amazed and moved to say the least at Takahata's great fundamentalism in dramatic film making, his sparce yet heavy observation for the quality of emotion, joy and sorrow. Here's a work that is so pure, honest and above all things, real. Grave of the Fireflies in all its humble honesty and clear subsistence, evokes a sort of quiet despiration into complex politics and devastating clarity; moreover, about one of the most clear and daunting subjects of out time. More and more, everyday, a clearing reality.

And yet, even so, Takahata renders beautifully with fixated images and glorious charicatures, what words could never hope to do. Here, he conveys the harsh fundamentalism of war, the inane aspects of fancy that seep themselves into our darkest subconscience as human beings. The striving ability to survive, in all its guises of purposeful ability, and overwrought circumstance. Characters like Seita and Setsuko are simply unforgettable, because they do not easily forget the basic quality and rule which embodies all of us, whether we like it our not. Our suseptibility to cling to the thoughts of our own shortcomings. Moreover, our own mortality.

I had never wept before, while seeing animated cartoons or films. I had not yet seen Grave of the Fireflies. So bold is its conveyance of the disturbed and the bliss of human retribution. The will to press on, its contemptibility to destroy itself as well as the human sustainment of decency. These of course are simple thoughts and actions that we seldom take notice of; until they grab us off-guard by the collar or simply elseware in all things big and small.

The movie carries itself slowly through a nameless plain that is the time of World War II, a wretched period of angst, contemptible slaughter and problematic truthfullness; one carring itself through ages of political and social complications, one which we never easily dismiss. Such events accounted for the unforgivable and hapless situations like the ones concerning the two main characters of the film. Who are as unlikely and heroic as they come. It seems that instantly we are drawn to them. Their clever instantaneous compasion for one another and the ensconced destiny of love and loss they carry within themselves. Such things are unforeseen to the naked eye, but clearly visible through the film's detail, its sublime images and dead-on accurate renderings of life.

And when I say accurate I most certainly mean it, as I'm sure did the animator's when constructing this film. Every inch of detail which accompanies the horrible aspects of war in present in the film. Everything from the shamelessly glorious politics of it all, to the incriminating punishment of overwrought images of death and decay. A quality to say the least that makes the film all the more joyous to behold.

Joyous may hardly become the word to describe the story once you sink your teeth into it. And even if you don't the first time (which I'm sure most of us didn't), once you begin the journey of the movie it's often difficult to look away. Since the movie is amazingly in all its good forms, entertaining in every respect.

In the beginning of the film, Takahata conveys a series of glorious, bleak lights and darks; heightened in quality even more by the haunting array of flames and the bombing from airships; almost a painfully beautiful sight to see. Seita carries young Setsuko on his back. There is a feeling of great haunting realism, as Seita casually asks his mother if she is getting her heart medicine; a condition which accompanies many people but usually never when blankets of bomb shell fire are streaming their way down your neck.

The audience is treated to some daunting and beatiful imagery here, Takahata as a director displays no prejudice whatsoever to the wonderfully beautiful images, as well as the death remnants of the battle. Seita and Setsuko wander around for what seems like forever only to return to a near-leveled city which lies in ruins. Seita starkly tells his younger sister while pointing out a foundation for a previous building site: "I think we ate lunch there once". However, not nearly as emotionally daunting as when, young Setsuko asks her older brother if their house was destroyed, as if gaining retrospective knowledge of such occurrences at such a young age. When Seita must haplessly reply yes, it leaves a chill down one's spine.

Grave of the Fireflies is actually conveyed in retrospect, as a momento of sorts of periods existing in thought and mind, but which are indeed long wasted. Its rudimentary opus of sorts is a clever montage played in an orange tint aboard a purgatory-like train; one which isn't morbid but tranquil and peaceful. While existing as wandering spirits, Seita and Setsuko gaze upon the destruction of mankind; a force neither controllable by them or induced through some ill-bred idiosyncracy of death's hand. Seita as a ghost of entity is tormented by his sister's suffering and lust for controlling her world. In the eyes of a child however such worlds are torn apart. In more grueling sequences involving a spiteful family aunt, lives are broken and the integrity of Seita is tested.

Continually paraded verbally over, as some mere testament to society's usage of him; Seita is emotionally torn into a series of escapes and escapades accompaning the attack on his conscience. Such are his responsibilities to his country, his duty as an upcoming soldier and his existing will to live; are torn apart by instances of demise and disappointment. Such scenes later in the film recall such earlier moments like these, during one almost unwatchable scene, Seita is abruptly reminded of his late mother's burning corpse amidst a sea of bodies. Which his younger sister now mimics to much avail with dead fireflies. A familiar motif in the screenplay.

I carry a theory that with every great devastating moment in film arises the aspiring will to press on, and more bluntly, usually a humorous touch. And Grave of the Fireflies suprisingly enough, is no exeption. As much as it dignifies the art of sorrow and the sublime quality of being, it touches us with profound moments of joy and happiness.

Seita and Setsuko play together in a bathing session at an old bomb shelter, as Seita happily creates "air bubbles" for her young sister to behold and wonder; a look of pure child joy emanates across Setsuko's face. In a scene so real it's enchanting. In another scene, young Setsuko wanders through a marsh filled with the glowing beauties the fireflies (which in fact do not live a long time), and as she runs through blissfully, you begin to appreciate the amount of detail Takahata places into the emotions of his characters. And it's enough to bring you to tears.

The war battle scenes, though scarce in the film, are all too real in tone and execution. Played out as enormous vignettes during the scenes of human bonding between sisterhood and brotherhood. Bonds not easily broken but perhaps more easily destroyed and separated physically. The flashback sequences in the movie seem to take on a life of their own, and are so sublime and masterful paired with the film's glorious score, that they simply leave me speechless each viewing.

A story which is so honest and dignified in its execution of the real joy of moments also carries within itself, a sense of emotional regression; as well as an approach to demise. This reality is customary to the two children, but also taken with a sour helping. The overwhelming symbolic nature of the candy tin, of course poses a sort of problem dealt in the examination of humanity and its inevitable will to annihilate itself in times of healing and progress. It comes at a price existing with the greatest of us, the unshakably decent wights of being, the children so to speak of our ever growing populated planet which only carry in themselves, sparce existence of being; during their all-too-short lives. Such reasoning of course involve the plethora of political and social enigma. All of its truth as well as its inherant lies.

And yet in the end, the glorious images in Isao Takahata's film tell us one important thing; that even amidst the breadth length of defeat of all its forms, the lights of things like the fireflies or anything pure pave the paths that we must follow through to see to our dreams. Even if in all the mad rush they are destroyed.

Even still, the existence and decency of such matters and inclinations are destroyed in the mad rush to understand it. This of course calls for simpler more profound tones of reason and the questions which envision everything. Spirits like Seita and Setsuko appear vaguely prior to the storm. Surviving through its unimaginable plights of horror, they are at last redeemed and reunited. "Grave of the Fireflies" is a wonderful movie which couldn't have been told any other way than it has been. In a nutshell its quality lives in all of us, calling us to travel to it and see for ourselves; the truths that defy all reason. Perhaps the very reasons we watch movies in the first place.

~This Has Been Yet Another One Of "T.A.O.'s" New Reviews Of Classic Anime Titles.~