Editing, Cinematography, and Mise-En-Scene in Grave of the Fireflies, Essay Example

Although most animated films are for families and children, “Grave of the Fireflies” is an emotional experience so powerful that it forces viewers to rethink their notions concerning animation. This full-length animated film depicts the lives of two young siblings that lived through the American attack on Japan in response to Japan’s attack of Pearl Harbor (Takahata). Although history books teach that America’s retaliatory bombing of Japanese cities was warranted and noble, depicting American pilots as heroes in films like Pearl Harbor, the Japanese civilians that lived through these attacks would have an entirely different story to tell (Bradley and Powers). Grave of the Fireflies is one of those stories, depicting the tale of two children from the port city of Kobe made homeless by the bombs and orphaned when their soldier father and mother are both killed. Based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same title written by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies the movie is directed by Isao Takahata, who uses animation to depict the graphic imagery of the negative effects of war, not just on the soldiers that physically fight the battles, but on the civilians, including the women, children, and elderly, that the soldiers leave behind when they go off to fight these wars (Walker).

Although Grave of the Fireflies entails the recounting of factual events and characters based in reality, the animated movie is still able to use elements of editing, cinematography, and mise-en-scene to give a realistic representation of a period of Japanese history fraught with strife, suffering, and death. By using animation, the director Isao Takahata is able to focus on Seita and Satsuko’s struggle to survive alone, in a war torn world where Napalm bombs fall from the sky, replacing everything they knew with walls of fire and the charred remains of friends, neighbors, and loved ones (Takahata). This vivid depiction of two siblings’ struggle for survival unabashedly displays images of corpses charred and burned by air bombs and children literally dying of starvation, all tragedies caused by American attacks on civilian Japanese villages (Takahata). The realistic imagery easily makes the viewer forget the film is animated.

The movie grips viewers from the onset with its opening scene being the death of the main character and narrator of the tale, Seita (Takahata). The imagery of this young boy dying amidst a sea of other poor, wretched souls wasting away on the cold stone floors of Nishinomiya Station as is a dramatic setting not easily forgotten (Takahata). The director creates a riveting scene using the daily traffic of the train station to present typical human reactions to the sight of the homeless where Seita is mocked, ridiculed, and ignored by passersby as they go about their daily business (Takahata). The bedraggled and starved Seita amongst a flood of other vagrants suffering from varying degrees of starvation receiving a hunk of bread from the lone, kindly patron just as Seita dies on the floor of the train station dramatically imprints the magnitude of his suffering on the mind of the viewer so that the image is not lost when the movie swiftly shifts to happier times (Takahata). The action of the janitor digging through the pockets of Seita’s corpse and, finding only the tin containing Setsuko’s remains, casts it into the field with no regard for the young life just lost creates a poignant image of the tragic loss of life made more horrific by the other corpses littering the train station (Takahata).

When the tin hits the ground, a cloud of fireflies are dispersed, revealing Setsuko’s spirit bathed in the golden illumination created by the fireflies and Seita’s spirit joins her to recount their tale as they move off hand-in-hand, still enveloped in the beautiful light of the fireflies, which places the story in the form of a reverie that personalizes the events for the viewer (Takahata). The director uses the image of the fireflies in an iconic fashion throughout the film beginning with their appearance in the onset of the film after the janitor tosses the tin filled with Setsuko’s remains into the field next to Nishinomiya Station (Takahata). The sadness of the emaciated Seita lying on the station floor is replaced by the healthy spirit of the young boy at his sister’s side and they walk off, hand-in-hand, into the haze of fireflies as Seita brings to life the story of theirs and their parents’ demise (Takahata).

The editor removes the audience to the next scene by fading and brings us face to face with Seita and Setsuko, in happier times, although the war has already begun and their father is gone since he is a soldier fighting in the war (Takahata). The cinematographic depiction of Seita’s paternal adoration for and devotion to his sister, who is much younger than he, is solidified as Seita is shown with his sister’s small form strapped to him in the traditional style many Japanese women use to carry their babies (Takahata). Their bond is further exemplified when the air raid forces them to abandon their home and go to a bomb shelter, their mother instructs Seita to take his sister as though this was the expected action (Takahata). As the siblings seek shelter from the hailstorm of Napalm bombs and the subsequent fires, the destruction depicted is not left to the imagination (Takahata; Walker). The beautiful images of lush, green, meadows and the charmingly picturesque village that introduced us to the happy, healthy Seita and Setsuko has instantaneously been replaced by charred landscaped liberally peppered by the burnt remains of foliage, buildings, and people (Takahata).

The movie progresses with the effects of the American retaliation being vividly animated as the sunny, blue skies are reduced to the dusky hue of the scorched lands beneath them (Takahata). Amidst vivid scenes of the carnage and destruction wrought by American bombers, Seita manages to keep himself and his sister alive through the night and takes Setsuko to their aunt’s house, which is far away from their destroyed village, hoping she will care for them (Takahata). Devastated by the loss of their mother, which he attempts to keep from Setsuko, Seita’s daily struggle to provide for his family is a more realistic interpretation of the bleak, harsh reality that was life in Japan during and after WWII, which is quite contrary to the Americanized version of the period (Howe; Walker). The picturesque, postcard-like villages shown in the Americanized versions of post WWII Japan are nothing like the actual cities destroyed by bombing and cruelly mock the piles of rubble, the remains of dilapidated buildings, and skeletal structures that comprise the post-bombing villages and landscapes in Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata).

However, Takahata’s decision to animate the film allows him to concentrate his focus on the haunting story of Seita and Setsuko rather than dividing it between the story and the necessity for numerous special effects. The focus of animation allows Takahata to infuse the story with emotion and life achieved through the nurturing of the storyline in descriptive increments that allow the tale to unfold with precision, capturing and holding the attention of the audience until the closing credits. The iconic imagery used throughout Grave of the Fireflies, such as the tin of candies that Seita buys for Setsuko and later serves as Setsuko’s urn and the brilliant fireflies mentioned in the title and pictured throughout the film, along with the constant backdrops of the ravaged land and people, give human dimensions to the animation and infuse the film with feeling, eliciting emotional responses from the audience (Takahata). The fireflies appear again the night Seita and Setsuko’s home is bombed by B-52’s and they are forced to leave and again the night they emerge from the train at Nishinomiya Station seeking refuge with their aunt after they discover their mother is a victim of the bombing (Takahata). The presence of the fireflies is significant during this period because they represent small beacons of hope, lighting the way to the children’s aunt’s house with the anticipation that they might find willing caretakers now that their mother is gone (Takahata). The fireflies appear again, this time in an awe-inspiringly brilliant display the night after Seita and Setsuko have settled at their aunt’s house and Seita has been able to recover the food he stashed before the bombing, when their hope is greatest that their aunt will care for them until their father returns from the war (Takahata).

Works Cited

Bradley, James and Ron Powers. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam Books, 2000. print.

Grave of the Fireflies. Dir. Isao Takahata. Shinchosha Studio Ghibli. 1998. Motion Picture.

Howe, Robert F. “They Turned the Tide: Members of the Doolittle Raiders Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the U.S. Answer to Pearl Harbor.” Smithsonian Magazine-Smithsonian.com (2002). online. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/They_Turned_the_Tide.html>.

Walker, Lee Jay. “Grave of the Fireflies and the brutality of war.” 5 March 2011. Modern Tokyo Times. online. 30 March 2013. <http://tokyoandjapan.wordpress.com/tag/akiyuki-nosaka-wrote-grave-of-the-fireflies/>.