There has always been this question when one talks about the cinema: should it be reduced only to entertainment or must it also question the realities of society? While this debate on the purpose of the cinema has been there for a long time, maybe since the inception of the cinema, it becomes more relevant and pressing in consideration of the fact that the contemporary commercial cinema is over-packed with an absurd concept of entertainment that usually has no relation to our realities.
The mainstream cinema across the globe has indeed become like junk food: quick to make and easy to consume, but unhygienic in its contents. The ingredients that the ‘products’ of the mainstream cinema are composed of include ‘romance’ between two protagonists, objectification of women, flimsy action sequences, and, in a typical Bollywood film, an item number, which is mostly a remix of an older but equally vulgar dance song.
However, there is a parallel cinema that has not lost its purpose and social utility. This cinema has kept itself away from the popular ‘rage’ and ‘trend’ that claims to change every few years but is the same at its core. This artistic and socially responsible alternative to the mainstream cinema meets the demand of an audience that watches the films that question and critically examine the society we live in.
Movies of different genres that belong to this category include Bicycle Thieves (1948), Paisan (1946), Battle of Algiers (1966), and Che (2008) among others. Moreover, Iranian films like Children of Heaven (1997), Turtles Can Fly (2004), Separation (2001), Gaav (1969), Stoning of Soraya (2009) Songs of Sparrow (2008), and Rashomon (1950) to name a few also fall in this category. There are also some Japanese examples of alternative filmmaking that illustrate or showcase the ills of society and even attempt to take a critical stance on issues that plague the Japanese community.
One such film which breaks the status quo is ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ (Isao Takahata, 1988), a Japanese animated film based on a short story of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka. The film is centred on two siblings, Seita, a teenager, and his sister, Setsuko who is around five years old.
The film is set in the Second World War when Japan is nearing its defeat. American bombers have dropped incendiary bombs on the port city of Kobe, and the whole city is ravaged and burnt down. The first shot of the film establishes Seita’s death in the subway station and his transference into the spirit world, where he meets his sister. The film uses flashbacks of Seita’s spirit to tell the story.
The film uses fireflies as a metaphor for hope: the brother and sister love to watch them flit about in the dark. The two children lose both their parents; They lose their mother in the bombing and their father, who is serving in the Japanese army, is possibly dead. Seita finds his mother covered with burns in a hospital and watches her die immediately. It is a heart-wrenching moment in the film.
They move to their aunt’s house in the countryside after the whole city is burnt down by napalm canisters dropped by American planes. There they face the indifference of their relatives.
Their aunt takes away their belongings as rent for their stay in the house. Seita is helpless, unable to do anything for himself and for his sister. His sister continually clashes with the aunt. With the result, Seita decides to leave their aunt’s house. They move out and start to live in a cave near a stream. Initially, it looks beautiful, but gradually it begins to take its toll on them. It is the little girl who succumbs first: she dies of starvation. The world which they build to escape the devastating consequences of war slowly begins to fall apart, and her death is the final nail in the coffin. Seita is shown, in the end, dying a slow death at a station along with two young people due to malnourishment with people standing around staring at their starved bodies, and not trying to help.
The film portrays Japan as not unlike a monster in combat with no concern for its people who were being killed like those of every other nation that was part of the war. The message is loud and clear: it is the humanity that dies in the end. It poignantly shows the moments that depict the level of dehumanisation caused by the bloodshed.
“Grave of the Fireflies” is a story of the failure of a brother and his little sister to survive in the unforgiving conditions created by war. Through the use of the genre of the animated film, the protagonists are depicted as exploring the harsh realities of war. The false nationalistic fervour that we all experience at one time or the other is exemplified by a scene in which Seita is shown fighting with some people over Japanese surrender to the Allied Forces because he is not willing to accept the collapse of the Japanese empire.
Besides, the film continually brings out the emotional aspects of human suffering and makes us feel sad for the two children.
In one scene, the fireflies act as lights inside the cave which delights the siblings, and in the other, the imaginative use of mud as rice balls mesmerises them. Such moments of transitory happiness while the bombers are constantly roaring in the sky, are telling.
“Grave of the Fireflies” explores the cinema with new insights and critically attempts to study how people ‘live’ the warfare. It debunks the myths of jingoistic nationalism, and with the use of Japanese cultural metaphors invites the watchers to revisit their humanity. Japan’s landscapes are used to evoke strong connections that the protagonists have with their land, and even though the surroundings are animated, the symbolism is potent but not mythical. For the film critic Ebert Rogers, this animated film is one of the best movies that tell stories of survival during a war.
