The Meaning of Fireflies

   The first film I’ll be looking at is Grave of the Fireflies, a historical Japanese war film made by Stuido Ghibli, directed by Isao Takahata, and based on the book of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka.

    In a nutshell, it’s a film about two Japanese children who become orphans during World War 2. The older brother, Seita, has to take care of his five year old sister Setsuko. After leaving their cruel aunt, the pair try to live on their own but eventually die of starvation.

      In the first article writer Chris Cabin gives a short summery of the film and gives his review, basically calling it an anti-war movie. In the second article, Transcending the Victim’s History, author Wendy Goldberg describes her own analysis of the film. She says that the intention of the film was to show the youth of Japan the history of their grandparents and their country. 

 (If you try to go to the Transcending the Victim's History page, you don't have to download it; just exit out of the little box that pops up asking you to download and it'll be right there) 

    These two different analyses perfectly represent what I’m trying to figure out. Cabin describes the film as an anti-war movie, as many who watch it do, since it shows two children dying tragic deaths due to war. However, Goldberg’s analysis is actually what the director’s intentions were. There’s a lot of history behind his motivations for the message of this movie that I won’t get into, but he wanted to show the youth of Japan what their grandparents had to suffer through to give them all the good things they had at the time. He’s even stated in an interview that Grave of the Fireflies is NOT an anti-war movie. But if a person sees it as an anti-war movie, is that wrong? With this movie, I would say no, that interpretation is a valid one. I think this based mainly on the fact that the imagery used in the film, the brutality of war and how it affects the everyday person, truly does support that interpretation. I myself see it as being something of anti-war film. 

    There has to be more to this though; obviously anyone can think whatever they want about a film. But where do the boundaries come in? When a person tries to publish their analysis? Or maybe if they have no evidence from the film to support their analysis? I'll have to keep doing more research before I have a concrete answer.