Ani-Me #22: The Plain-Faced Devastation of GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (Patreon)

So! I’ve secretly been really busy on the Ani-Me front because I decided to finally start watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and I’m about 1/3 into it (don’t worry, I like it!)  But since it’s a looooooong show (for my watching habits, not by, like, One Piece standards) I also decided to pepper in some movies to keep up the columns while I finish watching that.

Chief among the goals is to go through the majors of Isao Takahata’s work (I’ve only technically seen Only Yesterday so far) and that means returning to the site of what I know is his 1988 all-time classic. A sad film whose reputation I knew implicitly and perhaps had been putting off for that very reason. So why now? Well, I threw out my back last week and have been lying around in a sad mood, so maybe it’s just that I was looking for some kind of mirrored feeling? Whatever it was, I finally had the instinct to go in and just utterly annihilate my soul.

So without any further ado…

Today’s Entry: GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)

… I am left a withered husk.

This above all other things. I know I usually get up here and do some sort of song and dance about narrative execution, but there’s no good way to talk about this movie as a movie. Which is not to say it is not doing all those smart movie-like things. In fact, it executes perfect edits, subtle expressions, evocative imagery, and does all the stuff that makes for masterpieces. It’s just that it’s also not going to get trapped in any overt narrative games or sensationalism.

It’s a movie about plainly showing you “what is.”

It’s showing you what’s true whether it be the horrors of war, the crippling realities of starvation, or the mundane realities of day to day survival. But it is not crass about any of these things. It has no desire to rub your face in what is horrible. It simply stares at all of them with sobriety and sensitivity. Meaning there is no game of “gotcha.” Instead, from the very beginning of the film it tells you what’s going to happen. These two children have died. And then it just walks us through the steps of what orphaned them and sent them down a path of doom. Thankfully, it does not make the common mistake of being unrelentingly dour in this pursuit. Meaning it does not fall victim to the false wisdom of trying to maintain “an even tone.” Instead, it is about trying to maintain some kind of normalcy, or even realistic innocence and joy, all in the face of an impossible landscape. It is the attempt to be a full human being when the world denies it you. And the dread of knowing how it may end up anyway… In that, it is probably why it is the single most devastating movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Something that left me in a pile of tears and snot and the need to just lie there for hours on end. And at its thematic center rests a simple question…

“Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”

In other words, “why do terrible things happen to kids?” It’s a question we wrestle with because we live in a world that loves to ascribe meaning and / or cause and effect to events. No matter how much the world radiates with chaotic fervor, we have to create the justification. But disease happens randomly. Accidents even more so. And if you are believing in a rational or even divine universe, then it is quite easy to get tested by the stark inhumanity of what happens when devastating moments strike. The kinds of things that don’t allow you to see any kind of wisdom in “god’s plan.” Which is why the loss of these things tend to open entire wells of sorrow. There is no why. But the most terrible part is there are also grander things about society that help prevent these tragedies from occurring, just as there are larger trends that cause the suffering in turn. The problem is that they are often systemic. And there are four of them that Takahata touches on Grave of the Fireflies that I want to discuss.

The first system is war itself.

War is a waste. Of life. Or money. Of emotional resources. And of our basic empathy. But it has always been a waste. Please understand this is not to mock the bravery of anyone who risks life and limb. Please no. Instead, it is to staunchly criticize the hollow men who serve up such war in the name of selfishness, ego, and empire. Besides, war has always affected those who never sought to be warriors. From ancient sieges to the ravaging of countrysides, the blood spills into irrigated channels. And with time, the development of weapons just made the waste more and more clear, culminating in cities being leveled in a single moment. And now as it becomes automated, we see the personal cost to our own warriors less and less, while the grave cost of the human beings on the other side gets crammed into the nooks and crannies of ignorance. Look, I am not here to be some expert on the handling of international diplomacy. I am just here to say it breaks my damn heart. Every time I see Obama I realize you can pick a million important narratives to place upon him, but I can’t help but think about the Yemeni wedding struck by drones. I can’t help but think about the utter waste of the endless wars. I can’t help but think of Afghanistan getting taken back after twenty years. But what war is ever righteous? Even when we go back and think of the narrative of World War II, which always gets framed in the American narrative as the good fight, I think about how much waste flew in every direction. I think about how many civilians died. I think about how we didn’t have to drop the atomic bombs to win the war. And while we think of it as revenge from being bombed and tit and tat, I know that’s just the game of hollow men. And all the realities of what got trapped in the midst.

Like the two children at the center of this story. People like this certainly existed. And Takahata is just trying to show you their world, with all the grander horrors existing at the seams of their story. He has this incredible way of reflecting the scope of the war while always coming at it through their viewpoint. Again, it’s all presented with this plain-faced sobriety. Like the eerily quiet scene of the bombing at the start of the film, along with the way it evokes the day to day realities and even routines of being bombed (Do you put on your shoes? What do you take with you / etc). He even injects the larger notions of the system in key moments, like the idea that after ALL the horror he’s experienced, young Seita still can’t believe that the mighty empire of Japan has fallen, implying a whole militaristic indoctrination of thought that came before. I think about the waste of all of it. And the fact that so many children never got a future. Their lights stamped out in an instant. Or, worse, in due time of fallout.

The second system is wealth inequality.

There’s a moment at the end of the film that cuts like a dagger. Seita has just lost Setsuko to starvation and he’s walking the familiar roads at his lowest point. He then sees people returning to their lavish home now that the war is over. They’re so happy to be there, settling back into their untouched and pristine abode. This cuts so hard against Seita’s loss, along with their years of struggling to survive and carve out the meekest existence. There is always a line of have and have nots in the world, but times of hardship always accentuate them. Where the war was merely an inconvenience for some, for others it is the single most harrowing ordeal imaginable. Takahata is putting this here to highlight just how and why this happened to the two of them. Because war has this way of bringing people’s inhumanity to the forefront.

Look no further than the aunt character, who ends up feeling like the most evil character in all of fiction? I mean, she’s not, but the reason it feels that way is because it is someone who can’t help but snipe even in the middle of others incredible grief. A woman who deals with her anxieties by making others feel guilty, even for just taking up space. Seita understands that this is no space to live in and so takes Setsuko away from there. But then there’s that amazing moment of the Aunt’s surprise when they actually leave. Not just because she’s realizing the impact of her cutting words, but because it removes her bullying objects from the pecking order of her operational life. But she’s not the only one who fails to see their humanity first. There’s that devastating cruelty of boys who come into their camp and play with their stuff, finding all the things they have to do to survive to be “gross” and pathetic. And then there’s the altercation with the farmer, clearly sensitive to the idea of having his food stolen as it is his livelihood, but then he goes so far as to beat Seita mercilessly, deny his apologies, and even tear him away from a toddler being left alone. Instead of seeing the others’ humanity, everyone else is just seeing one inch in front of their face. The fears of war and wealth just make it easier to do so.

The third system is food inequality.

Which is an extension of wealth, for sure, but also something I want to talk about in a historical and modern context. Because food is the other giant passion in my life (I put all that crap on instagram). As part of that, I think it's an arena that comes with a tremendous responsibility to think about what food is, where it comes from, and how it can be sustainable, especially in the face of global warming. Because the thing that terrifies me about America is how much of it relies on the notion of “fake abundance.” Meaning that we love to believe that America is some towering bastion of overflowing bounty, with farms across the nation and grocery stores filled to the brim. But look no further than the ongoing “supply chain issues,” that are suddenly impacting modern life. The way our country operates means it can all be severed so quickly. Think back to the beginning of the pandemic and there was no toilet paper on the shelves because everyone suddenly decided to buy a single thing at once. And even with all that so-called abundance, it partially exists because 38 million Americans deal with food insecurity, including 12 million kids. How is this even possible? Because they are walled off from food security by rampant capitalism, which often throws much of that same food away, and the government fails to do anything about it. Even when looking at it on a grander scale, Jeff Bezos has enough money to effectively combat world hunger and still be the richest person in the world… All of this drives me insane.

But I also recognize that this is an abstract notion that hand-waves away the complicated problems with solving food delivery issues at their core. For instance, I always see these joking refrains on twitter about people rightfully complaining about capitalism and working a job 9-5 just so they can eat when they could instead be eating fruit and swimming in the ocean. Believe me, I understand the joking sentiment of this. But I still want to talk about that idea seriously because it highlights the scope of the problem and understanding how we solved things and then got in this mess in the first place (this is a simplified history). It’s easy to romanticize, but foraging for survival may be the most stressful, time consuming thing in the universe. Food insecurity was basically the first problem of human groups and governed so much about how those societies operated. Then we invented farming, which essentially helped create the entire notion of rest and downtime that humans so desperately need. But in wanting pleasure from this application of food, almost everything about society was shaped by making better food, growing better food, and having the resources to get people that food.

But when you aren’t actually looking at the function of the collective system in the long-term, like when you trust it will naturally work out, it gets destroyed so easily. And the fake abundance of America is the logical conclusion of that pursuit. Because we create all these systems that can wreak havoc on landscapes in a second. Seriously, one hip coffee shop in LA starts serving oat milk and a year later it radically re-shapes / hurts national economies that grew almond and soy (I’m not kidding). Keep in mind, it’s absolutely NOT about reverting things back to utilitarian needs. If anything, food diversity and high-end cooking can be very helpful in solving these problems. There’s just so much more mindfulness we have to have about the process of bringing food to the word. Because wasted food genuinely makes my skin crawl. From large systems of distribution, to advocating local sustainable sellers for meat and fish, to even the more personal choices at home. I don’t have an area to compost so I run a zero waste fridge. Meaning every single thing I buy I find a way to cook, often by creating a cycle of buying new ingredients to go with what I just bought. It’s a small thing, but it genuinely matters to me.

I appreciate you entertaining what could feel like a massive tangent, but  I say all this because all these ideas exist within the film’s microcosm. I mean, there’s a reason we spent forty five minutes watching them eat yummy rice, just to understand what happens when there is no more rice. And given the ending, what lingers is that moment where they both look at their humongous jar, eyes wide and excited, not realizing how quickly it will be gone. As the world breaks down around them, the food breaks down around them. And all the last second saves of a final trip to the bank and some meat will not save what has already happened… Why do fireflies die so soon? Well, 3.1 million kids die of starvation each year. It’s Grave of the Fireflies 3.1 million times. A notion whose very size is utterly beyond comprehension, which in turn dulls our ability to even emotionally relate to the injustice of a broken system at that scale. Which brings to the final point…

Because the last system is the limits of our dumb brains.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about non-stop ever since I read this article by Laura Hudson article on Hyper Objects, which is basically means the crippling realities of problems and systems so big that we have no idea how to compute them, emotionally-speaking (like the Covid epidemic). This is absolutely true for Seita’s headspace in the film. After all, he's a 15 year old kid. He’s trying to come to grips with the loss of a parent. But not just any loss, we’re talking seeing the remnants of her having been burned alive, still clinging to life, and then thrown in a mass grave. Just as he’s dealing with a father missing in ether. All the while, he somehow never doubts the empire of Japan as US bombers come in droves. With all these systems of chaos, all he can do to control his world is take care of and protect his younger sister. It is that which is simple. And at the center of his actions is the indomitable belief that things will be okay, even if he’s just distracting from the core worry. I can think of no image more stark in this metaphor than Seita doing loops on the jungle gym, all trying to make Setsuko feel better as she cries. And as he keeps trying to fix things himself, it all comes crashing together against the aforementioned systems of war, wealth, and food. And despite every effort, he eventually loses Setsuko to hunger… And it can’t compute with the reality of what he was trying to do all the while.

Thus, it immediately taps into the immense nature of survivor’s guilt. We believe we do everything right in trying to help someone in a given situation, but when it ends in tragedy, the sense of responsibility can feel all encompassing. Seita doesn’t say a word, but you see it, the crippling idea that he didn’t take care of her. Even though he did everything he could at every step. And sacrificed for her more than any human should ever have to. I’m sure the questions tear him apart. Should he have got the last of the money earlier? Should he have gone back to the horrible aunt? It’s easy to see in retrospect that “of course he should have,” but he left there to protect Setsuko in the first place. It’s just that their Swiss Family Robinson quest has now failed. Is it on this 15 year old? Where does the world bear responsibility? The confusion of this is harrowing. He can’t compute it emotionally. But it doesn’t even matter because there is nothing left for him. She was the point of all this. So he lets himself waste away into nothingness. If you do the math on going from VJ day to the date Seita says, it was only a month. That was all he needed to waste away and let the devastation take hold. As I watched, I was gripped with the fact of how intimately I know that feeling. It’s hard to explain wanting to die. Whether overcome with mountains of guilt or the ghosts of your own delusions, it’s so easy to become tired of the minute to minute pain of existence. To feel yourself only alive in that you're clinging to ashes in a box. Honestly, death is but the sweet release from this. And for some looking on, there is no truth more harrowing.

So let’s come back to the question: “why do fireflies have to die so soon?”

Because it’s hard to imagine a world where fireflies do anything but burn brightly for our own delight. For so many of us, we only consider them for the moments of joy that they provided. Even if we intellectually learn that fireflies die soon, it becomes easy to chalk it up to a reality of the universe. They’re “just flies” after all. But there is a difference in feeling it. In humanizing it. In being it. I know it would be easy to imagine the darkness of Takahata pitching an animated film about the crippling reality of war and childhood hunger, but really he’s just pitching the notion of what it’s like to be a firefly, unconsidered by the world. And by putting that notion so front and center from the very start, you feel both the dread and heartbreak of every scene as it happens. It is not a gut punch of narrative. It just reminds you that this is all real. And in a way, it is simple. It doesn’t have to be a hyper object of 3.1 million kids dying of starvation, it is someone’s truncated life…. again… and again… and again.

But sitting with this really hard.

Which is why I feel like we always end up talking about these kinds of movies from very different places. Just as why we have so many people bounce off of them. It’s probably also why we keep talking about these movies as movies, as if they are full of decisions that are only meant to be judged based on their relative executions of misery. Which is probably why I can’t tell you how many times I see young men get confronted with stories like this and go into knee-jerk denial mode of “we get it! War is bad!” Or I don’t want to enrage you, but quick googling of “Grave of the Fireflies sucks” leads you to sentiment like this: “I'll offer up a counter to most other comments here and say it's one of the most overrated films I've ever seen (Akira, another anime film, also belongs here). I never once got this feeling of 'helplessness' for the main characters, like there was always a smarter avenue for them to take but they never did. They make ridiculous decisions. I don't buy the 'pride clouded his decision making' argument - it was plain idiocy. I'm also uncertain about the whole 'show the ending at the start' thing, which removes a lot of the emotional punch from the film. I watched Millennium Actress for the first time last night and that for me was far sadder than anything Grave of the Fireflies threw my way. I find Satoshi Kon's works much more profound and sadder than the attempts of bringing out a similar response from Studio Ghibli.”

I’m not trying to pick on an individual response and genuinely don’t bother looking that up, I just want to use it as a theoretical to show the way this thought highlights what I’ve talked about above. Like the notion of clinging to the logic of cause and effect in the universe, which is often why people look at a characters’ actions in films like a list of obvious things that should be done. Not to mention that this viewer is so clearly bouncing off the psychology and importance of what is being presented, all while willingly signing up for something like the manipulation of Millenium Actresses’ heartbreaking bait and switch. It evokes someone who wants to be more surprised and shocked by sudden devastation vs. having to sit with it in the journey. Perhaps because it’s the only way to puncture their armored guard? But this does not mean it is a “wrong” way to watch anything at all. Lord no. It is a just measurement of what affects them. And on the other end of the spectrum there are people who recoil at any kind of “manipulation” on screen whatsoever, which is why they reach for the most subtle expressions of said subject. And even then, there are those who want to go to the movies and be assaulted nonstop by the barrage of gnarly horrors in order to connect on that emotional level.

Again, there is no “right” way to come at it. And there are movies that tackle the same relative subject of Grave of the Fireflies with those different tactics. I adore Theo Angelopoulos’ Landscape in the Mist, a brilliant film which uses more abstract cinematic language, but whose dourness can also feel unrelenting. A different example is Life is Beautiful, which uses all the big, broad, manipulative story gestures with reckless abandon and either succeeds or fails to you because of them. Likewise, works like A Serbian Film or The Tribe may speak your language of bleak, unabashed horror, but I honestly had to shut them off. We all have our ways of connecting to devastating art. But I want to dig deeper into that question of “why.”

Because what I worry about is the idea that our preferred methods speak to how we engage problems of the world on the whole. That we need both moving, but plain-faced portraits more than ever. And for whatever it’s worth, I earnestly believe that Grave of the Fireflies presents “what is,” in a way that is undeniable to me. It’s power is in being direct with you, but empathetic - and in turn it highlights what we are often uncomfortable being vulnerable about. It humanizes the hyper object. And it does not let us so easily steer the conversation into methodology and execution. For it does not want us to focus on anything other than “what is.” Perhaps because it understands that when we do that, we propagate distractions from the same systems that help create the problems in the first place. Which is all part of the failure to recognize a simple thing about the stark difference between how we judge movies versus how we engage the problems of society. Because...

The horrors of the world do not exist so you can find them subtle, nor surprising, nor gnarly.

The forgotten point is they shouldn't exist at all.

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<3HULK