The Paradox of Space: A Review of Grave of the Fireflies

   As an avid classical, jazz, and RnB music listener, I am accustomed to the power of silence: the use of fermatas, rhythmic breaks, and long chords to heighten and emphasize tension. These tense moments create opportunities for the artist to explore more powerful, satisfactory resolutions, and while various movies that I have watched employed this technique, I cannot name many movies that have done so more tastefully than Grave of the Fireflies.

    So many aspects of this movie are done right. Not right in the sense of cinematic standards, watchability, or digestibility, but more so in the sense that Isao Takahata creates a viewing environment that empowers the audience to grasp truly Seita's every emotional nuance. Furthermore, I find this movie all the more special because it achieves this level of empathy and connection between audience and character with limited dialogue. I refer to two specific moments that elevated the emotional influence of this movie. First, after the scene in which Seita realizes his mother's death, Takahata shows about a minute of Seita's defeated expression and Seita's crying, and 20 seconds in, I thought, where's the dialogue: I expected more chaos through dialogue, action, and movement to heighten the gravity of this scene. Only after the movie cut to the pair on the train did I understand both the intention and effect of having an empty scene. It is through the inversion of my expectation of chaos that I am forced to consider the weight of these events unto the characters rather than myself. Whereas other movies may include dramatic sobbing, powerful string music, and a physical breakdown to highlight the characters' pain and grief, Takahata utilizes silence so that the audience can understand the characters' emotion for themselves.

    The second moment, or groups of moments I should say, that I want to highlight is the repeated scenes of Seita and Setsuko running through the rice fields to and back from the beach and the caves. Again, it is not often a movie, especially an animated movie, is so devoid of dialogue, but Takahta creates something so inviting with these scenes especially. The first instance of this visual motif occurs when Seita and Setsuko run to the beach to play, and we hear their laughter as they make their way. On the way back from the beach after the bomb threat alert, we see the alteration of Seita's mood and thus the movie's atmosphere, despite the exact same backdrop. Before I present some of my ideas, I want to comment on how masterfully Takahata reuses and reinvents this visual motif as the movie progresses because as Seita begins running along the rice fields alone and through a darker color palette, Takahata visually emphasizes the continuously despairing mood of the movie.

    Now, I want to address how Takahata grounds characters to their settings but also uses this setting as a point of comparison the characters' current moods. While the green hue of the rice fields and the sparkling blue water never change, the palette of the sky, ground, and housing all interact with the characters' current moods. Because Takahata initially establishes this setting as a location of joyful laughter, when Setsuko walked through the fields crying of hunger and Seita scrambled desperately looking for food, my mind continued to wander to the laughter and happiness of Setsuko. It is almost as if Takahata creates this location as a safe haven for the audience because just as the settings ground the characters, our perception of the characters are also grounded to their setting. I associated the rice fields with happiness, and the darker scenes in the end that appeared in the end, thus, had less of an emotional impact on me because I remembered their initial happiness.

    In this final section, I want to address how the fireflies may tie into the movie's use of silence, elongated scenes, and tension. One specific quote captured my attention: Setsuko asks, "Why must the fireflies die so soon?" Considering fireflies as a "giver of light," we can extend this commentary to the deaths of both their parents, who not only die so soon, but die beyond the reach of Setsuko's immediate surroundings. To answer this question, perhaps, through the lens of the movie, I look to the heavy use of silence. The death of any one individual can happen randomly, unexpected, and quickly, and the light that the firefly brings can be dimmed at any point. Furthermore, the silence that follows is unsettling, tense, and complex, an environment that this movie expertly produces through music, design, and cinematography. But, it is from this silence that both the character and the audience have the adequate space to derive personal meaning from their deaths rather than the imposed meaning of the movie: in most cases, forced grief.

    In this silence, whether it be the wordless motif of the rice fields or the elongated scenes of emotional turmoil, I found myself craving for a satisfying emotional ending, but it never came. In the closing scene, Seita looks up and Setsuko appears, but this alone did not satisfy me. After rewatching the initial scene, where Seita passes away in the train station, and Setsuko's ashes are flung into a field of fireflies, I truly felt the emotion that many other viewers have described. In the silent, tense environment that Takahata creates, the audience is often left unsatisfied with the character's own inability to grieve and express. Takahata leaves this emotional irresolution for the audience to resolve, personally. Thus, I choose to believe that Seita starves himself to join Setsuko in the field of fireflies because given a movie that, on the surface, appears dark and hopeless, the fireflies provide us light. Although the good things in our lives may leave too soon, it is up to us to value the impact they have on us while we're here.