Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies (1988) – 3/5

It is worth the watch, but I cannot second the greatness others saw in it

„Hotaru no haka“ or „Grave of the Fireflies“ is a Japanese Japanese-language film from 1988, so this one has its 35th anniversary in 2023 now or maybe it has passed already if you read this review of mine a little later. This is of course an anime by Studio Ghibli, but it is not by Hayao Miyazaki as many wrongfully think, but the writer and director here was Isao Takahata and he was slightly over 50 when he shot this film. He died in 2018 and with his final career effort from 2013, he still managed to get in at the Oscars, which was also a bit of a career tribute you can surely say. Good for him though. But even without such an achievement, his career and body of work would be far from forgotten. This film here is comfortably in the top100, top50 even at this point, highest-rated films on the biggest movie website imdb. I would not agree with such a gigantic amount of praise, but I will get to that a little later. The co-writer is Akiyuki Nosaka and he is also no longer with us. No huge surprise as he was already another five years older than Takahata when this got made. And in general of course too. I cannot really say too much about the voice cast here, to be frank I cannot say anything, but from what I heard and as far as I can be a judge there, they did a fine job. I watched the original-language version with German subtitles tonight as this film was shown at a movie theater again on the occasion of an Asian film series/retrospective. The room was really, really packed, way fuller than with other Asian film that were shown as part of this series, but it is no huge surprise. People adore anime right now and older films generally attract nice audiences still. I hope this encourages people to keep showing old films like this one here, old anime films in particular.

I know this is categorized as a war film, but I am a bit hesitant there. Obviously, it takes place during times of war, but there is very little war action in fact. It is rather us dealing with the aftermath and seeing what happens/happened to the victims of war. The film is set in the 1940s when America attacked Japan. The Allies did I could also say. They are talked about on a few occasions, but never really seen in person. I thought it was interesting when we see the male protagonist’s reaction towards the end when he realizes that Japan is losing the war and that they have agreed to admit their defeat. While watching the film, I felt that the girl’s dying in here could have had to do with the atomic bomb, but maybe this was not really the case. Time-wise I am not so sure. The admission of defeat of course came right after the two explosions, but here a great deal of the action seems to have taken place way before said admission, so maybe it is really just all about the girl starving to death then. Nonetheless, I think you should not pay too much attention to how others describe this film and the historic backgrounds. Just believe your approach and you should be fine. This is the most important thing anyway, not only in terms of watching and/or reviewing films. I think this film had several strengths. Of course, the joy coming from the little girl when she was still somewhat healthy was so contagious and wonderful to watch. As a consequence, it was also really sad when we saw her getting worse then and being close to death towards the end. Just look at the final moments when she is already in some kind of delirium, talks about having prepared food for the male protagonist, but it is not what the boy sees. He did all he could to bring her some food himself. I think he mentioned eggs and maybe noodles. And he brought some juicy watermelon that he gives to the girl and she eats a bit and enjoys the taste, but she is already weakened too much and does not wake up. The funeral arrangements afterwards were also among the best and at the same time saddest the film had to offer.

Speaking of the boy, I was not sure initially if it is the girl’s brother or father. He even made a reference on one occasion where he said something that involved fatherhood, so I thought he really was the father, but he was too young for that and the longer the film goes, the easier we understand that he is the brother. Probably my confusion there was also fueled by the real father not being mentioned. We do find out about the mother though and her serious injuries that eventually result in her losing her life. More tragedy to be found. There is a great deal of fire in the first minutes and scenes of this film and it was tough to watch. Very dangerous, very tragic and so many lost their lives. So many corpses were also still lying around in the streets and one occasion the boy tells the girl to get away from one corpse. It wasn’t a specific corpse, just one like all the others. The boy tried really all he could to make life worth living for the little girl and bring her some joy when she does not feel too good. The scene where he is trying to distract her with these athletic movies was quite something. There they used exaggeration for comedy purpose, but the girl did not even see it really. Due to the film’s devastating background, they also made sure that there are not as many comedic moments in here as in other Ghibli films and also not too many fantasy moments. This film is supposed to depict the harsh reality where every single day is about survival. That was alright. Too many moments that will make you laugh would not have fit the film’s tone. And anyway, the overall sweetness and cuteness in certain scenes involving the girl especially will still put a smile on your lips. For me it was not really when she talked about going to the toilet which she does on quite a few occasions here (certainly not sweet when she describes the constitution of her feces that already implied her illness), but for example when we see her so delighted to eat some rice on one occasion. She seemed so happy there. It was beautiful. Hunger is terrible.

Anyway, I talked a lot about the two protagonists, but there are also some supporting characters in here, even if really not too many. The biggest is maybe the elderly lady, who seemed kind and nice early on, but gets pretty unfriendly the longer she stays in the film and eventually the two protagonists leave her home. I am not sure if she was the biological grandmother, but I think so. Perhaps the link between her and the kids, i.e. The mother (her daughter), being gone resulted in her more distant behavior then. I mean she was almost an antagonist when she reacted so harshly towards the kids having a fun time playing the piano. No surprise the two left a bit later. Or maybe the reason was that it was hard enough for herself to have enough food on the table and she just wasn’t able to have even more to keep two other humans from starving. Or maybe she knew what would happen to the girl at some point and she did not want to witness it. I still wonder where these back injuries came from. The girl’s I mean that we see on a few occasions. In any case, the doctors are not really much of a help either. The kids get a diagnosis, but no treatment or medicine. That is all. So, tragedy is inevitable then. Maybe the ending then was also where the film was at its best and most touching, but even if I really wanted to give a very high rating here, I just have to stay with „only“ three stars out of five. For the most part, it was not a great film. It does get kinda great towards the end and I guess these scenes there, also with the girl’s spirit, stayed in the mind the most for those who gave a really high rating here, but the majority of scenes before that were just good or solid or even mediocre some of them, so the ending alone cannot make me forget all about this.

Of course, as always with Ghibli, the music and visual style are very good. I must also say that I somehow though that this is maybe a new film and from the 1990s and not 1980s. But it is this old. Came out one year before the German Wall fell. If you do the math, then it will be in the 2030s at some point when the events depicted in here are as far away from the year of production time-wise as the production from the film will be from the present. Still a few years to go, but not super much. Just shows you that it is a truly old film now. It is not a truly long film, however. This one stays under the 1.5-hour mark and this is good because admittedly here and there it dragged a bit nonetheless. Overall, I would still say that the good moments and memorable aspects here are more defining than the film’s weaknesses and sub-par inclusions. Maybe the most memorable moment for me was when the girl accidentally kills the firefly in her hand. Fireflies were included here on several occasions, but for me they never felt as much at the center of the story here, metaphorically or factually, that I would have named the film after them. But yeah, anyway the frequency of alright moments, scenes and inclusions is why I give this film a thumbs-up and positive recommendation, but I must still say that it is (more than just) a bit on the overrated side and maybe you wanna catch some other great anime films first before going for this one here. I still wonder if I can maybe give it a 4/5 on rewatch at some point. I kinda doubt it though. Still, go watch this one when it’s on and you are not in the mood for a fun movie. It will probably be worth it. Doesn’t have to be the big screen either.