rave Of The Fireflies opens on the lines "September 21, 1945. That was the night I died." There's no artful metaphor here; the speaker is a ghost, looking down on his crumpled, emaciated body, hunched against a pillar in a Japanese train station. After he dies, 14-year-old Seita reunites with his 4-year-old sister, Setsuko, and their spirits begin a quiet train journey together. Looking out of the train windows, they recall the months before their deaths.
As World War II draws to a close, American planes are firebombing Japanese villages, destroying homes and killing civilians in waves. Seita and Setsuko lose their house and their mother in one attack, which also destroys their village, their school and the factory where Seita works. When their aunt, who lives in a different town, politely offers them support, Seita takes her at her word and turns up on her doorstep with Setsuko in tow. The aunt somewhat doubtfully takes them in, but as weeks pass and Seita does not hear from his father, and spends his time keeping Setsuko occupied and happy instead of helping with the war effort, the relationship between the woman and her unwanted relatives becomes progressively more unfriendly. Finally, stung by his aunt's criticism, Seita moves himself and his sister into an abandoned bomb shelter.
Briefly, the siblings revel in their independence, amid the lush, exquisitely detailed natural setting common to Studio Ghibli's other animated films, including Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Laputa: Castle in the Sky. The two children catch fireflies and play house, and feast on their remaining stores of rice without a stingy aunt looking on disapprovingly. But soon the food runs out, and Seita has to steal to survive. The beginning of the film foretells the sad ending, but director Isao Takahata lets the story play out at its own mournful pace, drawing viewers into the personal drama hidden in the larger story of the end of the war. As Takahata explains in an interview on this two-disc set, the story—an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka—is a warning about short-sighted pride, though one that he fears viewers generally miss in their sympathy for the protagonists.
Totoro's dark twin remains a powerful film
While Takahata was writing and directing 1988's Grave of the Fireflies, his partner in Studio Ghibli, Spirited Away writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, was hard at work on his lively kids' film My Neighbor Totoro. The two films were co-funded as a joint project by Nosaka's publishers, and they toured together as a double feature. They have certain similarities; both center on a pair of siblings struggling with the emotional effects of an absent mother in a hospital, and a scene in Totoro where big sister Satsuki confronts little sister Mei's desire to see their mother again mirrors a similar scene in Fireflies. Both films concentrate on the relationship between the siblings, and their methods of entertaining and comforting each other. Both films showcase the beauty of the Japanese countryside, and both even feature memorable scenes involving umbrellas. (The umbrella scene in Fireflies is by far the shorter and less significant of the two, but it provided a memorable visual that typically appeared on the movie's packaging and posters.) It's tempting to imagine Takahata and Miyazaki comparing notes over their works in progress, and trading ideas and images.
But the two films have very different tones. Totoro is a joyful, wild fantasy that eventually reaches a happy ending. Apart from the lingering ghosts and a few exaggerated details, Grave of the Fireflies is all too realistic. Viewers used to Studio Ghibli's bleak but ultimately uplifting fantasies may be surprised at how relentlessly grim Fireflies becomes, and parents should certainly be prepared for grief and a lot of difficult questions if they show it to their kids. But Fireflies is a typical Ghibli movie in many respects—it's beautifully made, with superlative attention to characterization and detail, and its young protagonists are human and very believable—which just makes their fate feel more tragic.
Central Park Media digitally remastered the film to remarkable effect, and its extras DVD includes creator bios, a few interviews, production art, historical material and a DVD-ROM section, while the main disc allows viewers to switch between the film and its original storyboards (which can be played independently in movie mode) by using the "angle" key. The result is an impressive package that showcases an equally impressive film, though one with a uniquely somber place in the stunning Ghibli pantheon.
Central Park's dub of the film is all right, though not stellar; Setsuko's English voice sounds too much like an adult trying to sound babyish, as opposed to the authentic performance given by the 5-year-old who voiced the character in the Japanese version. Takahata's story of how he found that child, and how he persuaded her to cooperate with the rigors of film dubbing, is just one of many enjoyable moments in his 17-minute interview.
— Tasha
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