Children know that war is unacceptable, that war makes no sense. It's when we 'mature' that as adults we rationalise things and find justifications for the horror of war. As we have seen in the last year, we even rationalise war crimes, breaches of humanitarian law and grave human right violations, as defence. Of course, I'm referring to Israel's ongoing crimes in Palestine, now expanding to Lebanon, but it also applies to Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, and so many others.
My son is thirteen years old. He has been bewildered by what's happening. He doesn't understand the full story but he has expressed concern at all the countless lives lost and the crimes that have reached his ears. He has heard some impassioned speeches and pleas for a ceasefire. And, of course, he has been thinking about it.
He surprised us recently, writing a short story where he laid out his thoughts about war and what struck me the most was how well he reflected the absolute senselessness of it and the grave loss of humanity it brings, both personal and collective. His story moved me and also reminded me of Grave of the Fireflies, a film that I've been holding back on playing for him.
He has watched all the Hayao Miyazaki films and most of the Ghibli films but Grave of the Fireflies was one that I was keeping for later. It's not that it depicts violence in graphic detail. It's not that I think it shows anything inappropriate for a thirteen year old. It's that the overall tone of the film is so real and so raw that it leaves a mark on you. It stays with you.
I didn't want him to lose some of his innocence but I think the events of the last year have already done that. He's picked up enough pieces of information, he's reflected on them and he was ready for the film.
We watched Isao Takahata's film last night. I knew what I was getting into, I have seen it twice before, but it still hit like a ton of bricks. An hour and a half later, as the credits rolled we watched all the credits in silence, still wiping out our tears and trying to come to terms with what we'd seen.
Then, slowly, we started talking about it. Not an easy conversation, but an important one. The first thing we talked about is how the film doesn't shy away from showing the horror of war but it doesn't do it by showing you death in graphic detail. In fact, the bomb raids and death are never depicted vividly. Takahata is not interested in that or in demonising the enemy.
The consequences of the bomb raids are shown a bit more vividly. We see destroyed villages, dead people on the ground, the mother wrapped in bandages but, again, Takahata is not interested in showing us gore and death. Instead, the film focuses on the consequences in a more abstract but more powerful way by framing the whole story around two children. A young boy and his toddler sister.
They are too young to understand the war, too young to rationalise it and it's their innocence that comes to the fore. In a senseless war, where adults kill each other, send young men to be kamikazes or deliberately choose to look the other way and not help each other, our two protagonists choose to take care of each other. They choose to isolate themselves from everyone else, from a world gone mad and to survive on their own, even though they don't really know how.
In a wasteland ravaged by the war, among dead souls who have forgotten humanity, our two protagonists build their own little world where their spirit and their light shines. Despite their hunger and exhaustion, they build a little house of their own in an abandoned cave outside the town where they can comfort each other, build a garden and play like the children they are.
In one poignant moment, Takahata seems to drive the point home through a metaphor. There is no light in the cave so our two protagonists bring fireflies inside. They illuminate the cave like a stunning sea of stars flying above them.
In the morning, the fireflies are dead and Netsuko prepares to bury them. She's upset by their death and she cries, "why must fireflies die so young?" That's the light of children, of human beings, fading and dying. That's the light of their hope and survival dying. The light of our souls and spirit. If it isn't clear enough already, this scene also reveals to both the audience and her brother that despite him trying to shelter her from their mum's death, Netsuko knew all along.
Grave of the Fireflies is such an incredibly deep and humane movie. Raw and honest. It eschews flourishes to simply focus on two characters and their struggles. Perhaps, the only real flourish is how Netsuko and Setai are brought to life in stunning detail. Their mannerisms, the way they play, talk, move and care for each other is brought to life by a master director and his animators in the most real and poignant way.
I was having a conversation with a friend recently. We talked about Hiroshima, where her family is from, and Gernika, which is in the Basque Country, where I come from. She talked about how the pain of that day never goes away. It is, perhaps, for that same reason that both Gernika and Hiroshima's citizens have been so vocal against the recent and ongoing Israeli war crimes. They know what it's like to be bombed indiscriminately.
War is senseless and tragic. Adults may try to rationalise and explain it. They may say that the reasons for the conflict are 'very complex' but, at the end of the day, the consequences of war for all those affected, both personally and collectively, are quite direct and simple. We all lose with war, both the 'victors' and the 'defeated'.
