Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka -1988)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Animation

One of my favorite movies
Pertama nonton film ini di Festival Film Animasi Fakultas Satra UI (sekarang FIB). Awalnya cuma memanfaatkan waktu kosong pas ga ada dosen, secara FISIP ke Sastra tinggal loncat :P

Pas sampe sastra filmnya ini dah mau mulai, lampu diruangan udah gelap banged..nyaris gak bisa liat apa2 kecuali screen filmnya. Seluruh ruangan ditutup kain hitam sampai ke atas jendela, jadi bener-bener ga ada cahaya yang bisa masuk.
Ya udah, gw dan 2 temen gw pilih kursi yang bisa kita jangkau masing-masing alias berpencar.

Menurut gw film ini OKE banged.
Penonton seperti diajak tour ke dalam kehidupan kakak beradik Seita dan Setsuko. Gimana mereka berjuang untuk tetap bersama dan tetap hidup di tengah perang yang berkecambuk.
*fyi, biasanya gw paling anti film perang, tapi film yang ini melihat perang dari sisi yang lain.

Pokoknya ini film bener-bener bikin penonton ikutan terbawa, ikutan ngerasain yang mereka berdua rasain.

Hiks...hiks...gak terasa air mata gw mulai deras pas film ini hampir berakhir...
Sambil malu-malu ambil tissue di tas buat ngelap. Untung ruangannya gelap.
Ternyata pas filmnya selesai dan lampu dinyalain, hampir semua penonton lagi ...shrot...shrot... sentrap-sentrup abis nangis...hehe

Emang dasyat ni film :D

*film ini juga berguna buat gw mengeluarkan air mata kalo lagi bete berat tapi gak bisa keluar air mata. Dijamin langsung nangis sesenggukan! :">

****

A tragic film covering a young boy and his little sister's struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.

Setsuko and Seita are brother and sister living in wartime Japan. After their mother is killed in an air raid they find a temporary home with relatives. Having quarreled with their aunt they leave the city and make their home in an abandoned shelter. While their father's destiny who was a soldier is unknown the two must depend on each other to somehow keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. When everything is in short supply, they gradually succumb to hunger and their only entertainment is the light of the fireflies.


The story is based on the semi-autobiographic novel by the same name, whose author, Nosaka, lost his sister due to malnutrition in 1945 wartime Japan. He blamed himself for her death and wrote the story so as to make amends to her and help him accept the tragedy.
Due to the graphic and truly emotional depiction of the negative consequences of war on society and the individuals therein, some critics have viewed Grave of the Fireflies as an anti-war film. The film does provide an insight into Japanese culture by focusing its attention almost entirely on the personal tragedies that wars give rise to, rather than seeking to glamorize it as a heroic struggle between competing ideologies. Conversely, some critics have cited the film's narrow focus on suffering by solely Japanese characters as a classic example of Japanese myopia toward the root causes of WWII and the failure of Japan to address its own grave responsibilities for aggressive acts of war and war crimes dating to the 1930s[citation needed].
An alternative interpretation is that Grave of the Fireflies illustrates the danger of pride over reason. This view holds that Nosaka's alter ego, Seita, must face a crucial decision (on two occasions: when he leaves the aunt's house and when the man in the field rejects him), either stay with the wicked aunt, work, earn money and face reality, or run away. Ultimately, Seita chooses pride over reason, and his fate and that of Setsuko is the result of his own decision to leave the aunt's house. Had they stayed, they would have most likely survived. Moreover, some have argued that if the film is in fact true to the book (which is a personal apology to the author's own sister), such a premise in and of itself hardly demonstrates an intent to make the film a strident anti-war treatise.
In fact, to some, the war is itself only the initial cause of the events. Following the B-29 raid, there are only brief references to the loss of the Imperial Fleet (and thus the children's father, aboard the heavy cruiser Maya) and the end of the war, both in the first half of the film. The story is one of personal trial in the midst of a society which has no resources to help two orphans out of many, and the choices made by a boy who is in over his head.