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- Mirror, The (1974)
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- Is "The Sting" The Best Gambling Film Ever Made?
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- Rome, Open City (1945)
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- 1001 Club - Skyfall (2012)
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Grave Of The Fireflies (1988)
Animé AND Drama?! Whaaaa?!??!
Genre: War Drama Animé
Starring: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi
Directed By: Isao Takahata (My Neighbors the Yamadas • Pom Poko)
Overview: This is the story of teenaged Seita and his five-year-old sister Setsuko, two children trying to survive from starvation during the Second World War.
The opening line of Grave of the Fireflies is "In 1945, on the night of September 21, I died." This character, a teenager of about sixteen, starves to death in the street, surrounded by commuters walking around him. The rest of the film is a telling of how Seita reached this point. We return to his family home. His father is away, an officer in the formidable Japanese fleet. His mother and five-year-old sister live in a typical wooden-homed village. Soon the American fire bombers raze their home and their mother. Seita and Setsuko are homeless, but still have an aunt in another village that they move in with. This new life begins well enough, but as rations thin and their aunt begins resenting the children for their stomachs, things get difficult. Though some of the film focuses on the relationship the two have with their aunt, most of the Grave of the Fireflies is about Seita and Setsuko's days together, with the 'futility of war' theme as one of the least muddied messages you've seen in any film ever made.
The film has plenty of joyous moments, sunny days spent idle bathing, scavenging and eating, but as the despair of their situation grows ever more dire, those happy moments only serve to make the tragedies all the more poignant. The animation is absolutely beautiful, and the added recurring symbolism of fireflies adds a wonderfully poetic touch to the story. Seeing the warm glow of the creatures against the night sky juxtaposed against a sky filled with firebombs deserves a gracious tip of the hat. What stands out most for me is the voice acting of Ayano Shiraishi. Quite obviously she was as young as the five-year-old girl she portrayed, and after this second viewing, I still believe her voice acting is one of the tenderest, most pathos-filled voices I've ever heard. Should you pick up this DVD animated by Studio Ghibli, do yourself the favour and watch it in its original Japanese with subs, as the English dubbed version grossly pales in comparison.
Grave of the Fireflies currently sits in the center of the IMDb Top #250 bell curve at #129, a well deserved position in the grand scheme of film.
Did I mention she has one of the best voices in cinema history? Oh I did. Good.
Performance: 9 Cinematography: 8 Script: 8 Plot: 8 Mood: 9
Overall Rating: 84% (Praise The Lord, I Saw The Light)
Aftertaste:
My favourite genre is Tragedy, with my all-time favourite film being Requiem For A Dream... well, perhaps saying 'the best film I've ever seen' would be more appropriate than 'favourite'. Point being: I be a dark fellow. This is one of the reasons that Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most important Animés I've seen, and much more poignant than other similarly-themed movies like Barefoot Gen, a film that unfortunately showcases melting victims of Hiroshima next to WACKY SCENES OF COMIC RELIEF! HA! HA!
The biggest tragedy of The Grave of the Fireflies is that it hasn't had the benefit of being given the Blu-Ray treatment. Let us hope this is remedied soon.
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