Hotaru no Haka
Grave of the Fireflies

From ???@??? Tue Feb 16 12:13:00 1999
To: anime
From: Kiki
Subject: Grave of the Fireflies, tomorrow!

Ug, sorry for not getting this out earlier!  And the holiday makes it even later!

The movie this week is Grave of the Fireflies.  It's based on a true story about a young boy and his little sister trying to survive in WWII Japan.  They lose everything in a firebombing and try to exist on their own.

Rather than try to give an overview, I'll just give a personal statement...

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I first saw this movie.  So, it hit be really hard.  My father served in WWII, and though it was a long time ago by the time I was born, and he served in Europe, his oppinion of the Japanese was clear to me.  I had a very American-centric view of the War.  I knew what the Jews went through, I've read about the devistation of the Bomb, but never thought anything of the Japanese but as viscious warriors.

I never thought of the people who were innocent, but merely nationalistic.  We love our country, and so do the Japanese.  Being defeated devistated them.

I learned of firebombings from the amazing book, _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_.  The Atomic Bomb was horrible.  Firebombing was equally horrible.  Blanket a city with incindiary bombs so hot that they catch anything on fire.  Once a "firestorm" begins, it burns everything.  Asphalt melts.  Iron burns.  People suffocate in basements because the air is burned up.  The wind generated from burning the air, blows and fans the fire even greater.  A firestorm, once started, can only burn itself out -- it cannot be stopped.

Thus, Seita and Setsuko lose their home.

The movie starts with some gruesome scenes of the firebombing, but this isn't a movie showing horrible scenes of death and suffering, it is a gentle story about life.  That's why this movie hurts so much.  You fall in love with these children...

It was a year and a half before I could wath this movie again.  But once I did, I gobbled up everything I could find like it.  On my list of movies is also "Rail of the Star" about a Japanese family escaping from Korea after WWII, and also "Barefoot Gen" which is a true story about a 7-year-old surviving the Hiroshima bombing.  [The latter is an *excellent* manga.  I hope to read all issues of it.]  I hope to show these in the future.

What: Grave of the Fireflies
Where: Bugville
When: tomorrow [wednesday] 6:30 eat, 7:30 movie
Why: because the War is a part of our past
How: as usual, I'll read the script

<sigh>  Because this is such a depressing film, I know a lot of you will probably skip it.  So please let me know if *anyone* is going to come at all! :)

Kiki


From ???@??? Tue Feb 16 13:42:29 1999
To: anime
From: Kiki
Subject: Re: Grave of the Fireflies, tomorrow!

>Check that... I think it's a novel, not a true story.  Remember they
>both die at the end... and I don't think anyone but the boy really
>knows what happened.

It is a true story.  The boy didn't die, but the rest is pretty well true.

I read an article about Takahata and the author, NOSAKA Akiyuki and the author says he made the little boy a little bit nicer than he was.  [Perhaps because he felt bad about his actions.]  But his sister did die of malnutrition.  He said he always intended to bring food home for his sister, but he was so hungry he'd eat it instead.  He says he remembers the night she died, because the war had just ended, and he was carrying her body, and the lights had just come on in the city finally, after being blacked out for so long.

Takahata said is was interesting working with much younger animators who don't remember the war first-hand.  He said they would draw the backgrounds all bright and lit up, but it wasn't so.

The FAQ doesn't have nearly as much info as the article did, since both men were being interviewed.  I have the article somewhere.  Val Mih gave a copy to me once.  I should dig it up.

Kiki

PS They both die in the *beginning*, not the end. :)