Hotaru no Haka aka Graveyard of the Fireflies

"Why do Fireflies die so young?"

Movie description (on case):

It is post war Japan just weeks before the American occupation. In the city of Kobe, a boy lies dying in a train station. Beside his body lies a small candy container. A janitor, unsure what to make of it's ashy contents, pitches it into the night. As fireflies float softly around it, the ghostly images of the boy and his little sister appear...
Flashback to a short time earlier. Orphaned and homeless from a fire-bomb attack on their city, 14 year old Seita and his 4 year old sister, Setsuko, set out to survive in the face of a society that is no longer able to protect them. Forced to live in an abondoned bomb shelter in the Japanese country side, they slowly come to realise that they can never escape the hardships of war, or even find enough food to survive....

Original Story: Akiyuki Nosaka, Executive Producer: Ryochi Sato, Written and Directed by: Isao Takahata.
Genre: Drama, Colour, Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 English and Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 88 minutes. Unrated.
Regional Info: Region 1 (US/Canada), NTSC. US Publisher : Central Park Media.

What I have to Say:

Basically the most beautiful animated film I've ever seen. I cannot compare it to anything. The only movie to make me cry especially at the end as Carly Gurci's music plays on an old grammophone
and we fully realise what has happened. The movie starts at the end, with Setsuko lying dead in a Kobe train station. We already know what happened to his little sister. In the rusty sweet tin, a source of
much enjoyment for her - are the child's ashes. The movie is basically the story of 2 forgotten orphaned children who live out their short lives as well as they can. However without parents and with
some elements of misplaced pride the boy possesses the children end up where they do.

The movie is intermingled with many stills. Stills of nature to be precise. We see fields, forest, plants and fireflies with scenes of destruction and intense sadness.

Characterisation:

Seita - Seita is steadfast and believes in the Empire (his father is a navy officer). He does the best he can for his baby sister including covering up the fact that her mother is dead, getting food for her
and providing entertainment any way he can. The relationship is really close.

Setsuko - She's drawn and portrayed like a 4 year old child. Every gesture is genuine - take a scene when she opens up the tin of sweets only to shake it and as it produces no sound her happy inquisitive
expression changes to sorrow at the thought of it being empty. Seita then takes the tin and produces the sweets which were all stuck together. To achieve this depth of animation you don't need a supercomputer but a genius director.

Suffice I won't say more. The movie is strongly anti-war and has touched me greatly as it has countless others who've seen it before me. I would recommend this movie to anyone, not just anime fans, but fans of art /foreign films and everyone. See www.amazon.com for reviews of this film to see what others have thought of it. If you plan on watching one foreign film this year make it this one.

This movie is the best animated film and I rate it as one of the best films ever, together with works produced by Kurosawa, Kieslowski and Kubrick.
Other anime greats : Perfect Blue, Serial Experiments Lain, Kiki's Delivery Service, Monoke Hime, My Neighbour the Totoro, Whispers from the Heart (If You Listen Closely) and Only Yesteday.