Review: Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
This isn't really a review, as Grave of the Fireflies is a film so intensely sad that I find it hard to approach critically. Instead, I will note one particularly interesting piece of trivia: the director, Isao Takahata, has repeatedly denied that this film is an anti-war film. Nonetheless, the depiction of siblings struggling to survive whilst ostracised by society is painfully compelling, driving home the human impacts of war like little else.
That is not to say that Takahata’s intent of holding up a mirror to a repressive society was not clear; he achieved his aim with dazzling clarity, giving us a film that shows how little reprieve or hope outsiders have in a socially authoritarian land. It is an effective film, devastatingly so.