Movie Review: Grave of the Fireflies
I know Jeremy is usually the one reviewing Japanese animation around here, but it was discovered, in our hunt for Terribly Sad Movies to review for this month, that I was the only one of us who hadn’t seen this one yet. In fact, I hardly knew anything about it other than it was rumored to be “the saddest damn film.” The rumor came from the source of ‘Jeremy and Billy.’ So it was decided that I would be the one to sit down one sunny summer Wednesday afternoon and watch this little flick which was apparently about children in WWII Japan. Lucky me.
And having seen it… I really don’t know what to say about this one. I review things purdy. I do good. But it wasn’t the SADDEST thing I have seen is what I mean, I guess that’s what I am mostly thinking about. I mean, I expected to be shattered. I expected devastation of my mood, no more sunny days for weeks after this experience – but I only needed one tissue to weep into, as opposed to the whole darn box. It sticks with you though, I guess. Afterward, I ate my lunch and could only think about malnourished and dying children. This seems to be what this movie is going to do to me. During the film, I looked on in a sort of silent horror, wondering what on earth would happen next. But now, it is over, and I am faced with a night of Thinkin’ ahead of me.
It is entirely possible that our reader population here has already seen this one or heard enough about it to want to avoid it forever, but I hate spoiling movies like this with even mention of more than the most basic of plot descriptions. So JUST IN CASE, I think I will just list what will be on my mind until I can figure out how to forget about this. At times like this, I feel that saying nothing on these topics will speak volumes more than long-winded paragraphs actually would, and not just because I am too disappointed in everyone who’s ever lived to gather the motivation to be wordy.
- War Is Terrible
- People Are Awful
- People Basically Make Their Own Problems
- Children Die
- Nothing Ever Changes
Forever.
WWII was not the first war. There have been new wars since this movie was released, which should have been seen by everyone by now so their lives could change when they realized how they should not behave. For thousands of years, people have basically been thinking war will only solve problems and not make any new problems at all, they have been treating each other like shit, they have been creating their own misery, and all sorts of innocents get killed in the process. If it hasn’t changed by now, well, why would it ever change? People would need to stop secretly loving the drama of feeling like a victim of a cruel world, and that is never, ever going to happen. Ever. God, I mean, you can probably look out of your window right now and see people in the street all lamenting over anything they can. That’s almost entirely what television airs anymore. Dumb people doing dumb things and then not understanding the tragic consequences. So as long as there are people like that, there are going to be situations like that, and the situations will become larger, involve societies, everything gets way serious and then oh yay some more wars and more misery to talk about.
The worst part of it is that there are plenty of people who know better and will avoid personal dramas as best they can. But personal dramas of fools can spill into your own without warning, and these societal dramas, these world dramas, you can’t always avoid them either. And then you run the risk of being nothing more than another child dying of starvation because the world is run by selfish morons or sinister villains.
Happy weekend, everyone.
