Winner of the 1994 'Chicago Children's Film Award' for 'Best Feature', Grave of the Fireflies leaves its audience captivated by its character driven story of war and survival.
Brother and sister, Seita and Setsuko are orphaned after nuclear warfare rained upon their town. Facing starvation and great loss, the two children move to their less than thrilled aunt's home in a neighboring city. Here, they recieve contempt and hunger from the war torn community. Seita decides to move his sister Setsuko to a shelter ouside of town. They live by eating frogs and oysters. As the rainy season approaches, Setsuko is deathly ill from malnutrition, but nobody cares to give some of their rations to the starving child despite Seita's noble efforts.
As the film ends children of wealthy parents move back into a nearby estate, untainted by war. The contrast between the two sets of kids is sobering. To sum the entire movie, Grave of the Fireflies is the Japanese Anime version of Empire of the Sun. Despite usual nausea-powered voices of anime used for the English language track, this film is suprisingly moving. It's worth the price of a rental. |
