Isao Takahata’s 1988 masterpiece, produced by the legendary Studio Ghibli, is an animated film about the firebombing of Kobe during World War II. But to call it a “war film” is like calling the Book of Job a “bad day at the office.” It is a ghost story that announces its ending in its first shot, then spends the next 89 minutes breaking your heart by showing you how it got there.
BY ROGER EBERT / April 8, 1988
There is no villain here. No evil general, no snarling American pilot. The enemy is the math of scarcity. The villain is the logic that says an orphan is less valuable than a farmer. Seita’s fatal flaw is not pride, but love. He gives Setsuko his share of the food, drains his own life into her, and watches helplessly as she slips away. The famous, devastating final montage—Setsuko playing alone in the cave, hallucinating, cutting a tombstone for her imaginary feast—is not manipulative. It is simply the truth. grave of the fireflies roger ebert
Grave of the Fireflies is not anti-Japanese or anti-American. It is anti-war in the deepest sense: not as a political slogan, but as a visceral, tactile horror. It argues that war is not fought by soldiers. War is fought by children sucking on marbles. War is fought by mothers burning to death in their own homes. War is a firefly that flickers beautifully for a moment, then is crushed underfoot. No evil general, no snarling American pilot
I have seen this film three times. I will never watch it again. But I am grateful it exists. It is one of the greatest war films ever made—indeed, one of the greatest films, period. See it once. Bring no children. Bring no snacks. Bring only the knowledge that animation is not a genre, but an art form capable of expressing the deepest registers of human pain. Seita’s fatal flaw is not pride, but love
Roger Ebert’s Rule of thumb: A great film is one that allows you to see the world through another’s eyes. Grave of the Fireflies forces you to see through the eyes of a helpless child. The animation becomes a tool of unbearable intimacy. When Setsuko sucks on a marble and pretends it’s a candy, we don’t see a drawing; we see a child’s imagination cannibalizing itself to survive. When she finally makes a “rice ball” out of mud and clay, eating it with desperate, theatrical delight, the screen blurs. That is the moment you realize you are crying.
At the very end, we see a modern Kobe, neon and chrome, bustling with life. And on a hill overlooking the city, two ghost children sit on a park bench, eating a candy tin that will never be empty. They are not sad. They are simply waiting. Waiting for us to remember what happened to them. Waiting for us to ensure it never happens again.