Grave of the Fireflies Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release
On the final days of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his four-year-old sister Setsuko are orphaned after their mother is killed during an air-raid by American forces in Kobe, Japan. After having a falling-out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency funds and rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko must struggle to survive their hardships as well as those of their country, which is on the losing end of the war.
For more about Grave of the Fireflies and the Grave of the Fireflies Blu-ray release, see the Grave of the Fireflies Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on November 28, 2012 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.5 out of 5.
The horrors of war have provided grist for the filmic mill since virtually the dawn of the medium, resulting in a number of
all time classics from All
Quiet on the Western Front to Saving Private Ryan. It's perhaps more than a little ironic that one of Mankind's most dunderheaded
proclivities could also offer artists in so many different mediums the inspiration to create such memorable works. Pablo
Picasso's Guernica, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace—the list is as
endless as Man's seemingly eternal genetic desire to wipe out other humans who don't share their same nationality,
politics, race, religion or any other given distinguishing characteristic. The world of anime hasn't been immune to
exploiting the possibilities of war themed material, though as any anime fan will tell you, nine times out of ten that use
tends to be set in a dystopian future, where people are either dealing with a post-apocalyptic world or are otherwise
attempting to fight off encroaching hordes of aliens. One of the very rare exceptions is the haunting 1988 feature
Grave of the Fireflies, a simple but devastating account of two children trying to make their way through the
burnt out husk of the Japanese city of Kobe in the closing days of World War II. Based on a 1967 semi-autobiographical
novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies was the first animated production by publishing house
Shinchosha, but its claim to fame in animation circles comes from the fact that Studio Ghibli was hired to handle the
actual animation. As Ghibli fans will no doubt attest, that studio has not just an incredibly distinctive style, but also a
tendency to deal in somewhat bittersweet stories, almost always focusing on children, and in that regard Grave of
the Fireflies fits snugly into the Ghibli tradition. In other ways, though, the film is decidedly more gruesome and
troubling than many Ghibli releases.
Young teen Seita is a sweet natured boy who is tasked with taking care of his very young sister Setsuko as an Allied
firebombing raid roars over Kobe. Most Americans are of course aware of the hideous damage caused by the atomic
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which facilitated the end of hostilities, but fewer are probably cognizant of
the
earlier raids which in their own ways wreaked havoc across the Japanese landscape. Grave of the Fireflies
admirably if very troublingly captures the confusion and chaos caused by these firebombing raids, especially since the
film
is shown from the point of view of two children. Seita manages—just barely—to keep himself and his sister safe from
the flames raining down on and around them, but he soon finds out his mother has been horribly burned in the attack.
She dies from her wounds a short time later, and Seita suddenly finds himself completely responsible for Setsuko, since
their father is a naval officer off fighting the war on the Pacific Ocean.
Seita and Setsuko end up staying with a distant aunt, who is in fact distant in every sense of the word. She seems
jealous that the children are the progeny of a military officer, and so are afforded better rations than she and her family
are, but she also just seems to resent the fact that she suddenly has two more people in her house, despite the fact
that she takes the kids' late mother's kimonos and sells them for a rather generous supply of rice. This sets up the long
middle act of the film, where Seita and Setsuko eventually leave their uncomfortable cohabitation situation and move
into an abandoned bomb shelter to make their own way through the waning days of the war.
Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most tonally fascinating war films I've personally ever experienced. It
routinely floats between the outright horrors of the conflict—things like burned bodies heaped in destitute city streets—
and a more elegiac, almost meditative, approach that focuses on Seita's awareness of nature as well as the playfulness
that children, even children caught up in a global maelstrom, often exhibit. A perfect example comes early in the film
when Kobe is being firebombed, an attack that nonetheless does little to dissuade Seita from focusing on a lone leaf
floating in a nearby planter. Later, the recurring motif of the firefly (an obvious reference to the fragility of life) makes a
poetic statement that is both visually alluring as well as increasingly meaningful as the story progresses.
This review has purposefully refrained from mentioning one major salient framing device that Grave of the
Fireflies employs. The film itself gives up this conceit in its very opening images and in Seita's narration, but it's
important to experience it first hand and not have it be spoiled ahead of time. Without revealing this fulcrum around
which the entire emotional arc of the story hinges, it casts the entire film in one of the most emotionally devastating
examinations of the horrors of war imaginable. There have indeed been too many films about war to count, and many
of them have had considerable emotional impact, but it's hard to think of a more completely overwhelming emotional
experience than that offered by this curiously lyrical but ultimately incredibly sad film.
Grave of the Fireflies is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in
1.85:1. Since this wasn't an "official" Studio Ghibli release, my sense is it may not have been curated as effectively as some
actual Ghibli creations, something perhaps hinted at by the state of the original English audio (see the audio section below
for more details). While this is often an extremely pleasing high definition presentation, the elements here do seem to be
just slightly faded at times, without the deep saturation that tends to define a lot of other Ghibli animated product.
That said, the image
here is excellently sharp and well defined, with crystal clear line detail and a generally very naturally filmic appearance.
You'll
note that this film frequently features "static" backgrounds, even when those should be swarming with things like fire and
billowing smoke, and that aspect lends a certain painterly look to the film which is rendered very well on this release.
Grave of the Fireflies features three audio options, all delivered via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes. There's a newly
recorded English track, the original Japanese track, as well as the original 1988 English audio track. A note on the audio
options states that the masters for the original English audio track have been lost (hence my mention above of the perhaps
shoddy curating this film experienced), and that a dupe track with damage was utilized for this Blu-ray. The biggest
problem with the original English track is one of amplitude. Nothing really ever pops sonically, and it's quite hard to hear
some occasional lines of dialogue (it seems like this would have been an easy thing to fix with any number of pro audio
tools). There are other occasional issues with this track, like pops and cracks. The two other tracks sound excellent,
though there's quite a difference in the voice work in the new English track compared to the original. Fidelity on both the
new English track as well as the Japanese track is excellent, and the English track especially makes some rather good use
of wide stereo separation. This track and the Japanese track also exhibit very good dynamic range.
To describe Grave of the Fireflies as a heart wrenching experience may qualify as the understatement of the year.
This film manages to be as resolutely anti-war as Johnny Got His Gun, with the same general avoidance of actually
concentrating on battle that the Dalton Trumbo outing did. Perhaps that comparison is apt in more than one way, for as
with Johnny Got His Gun, we're confronted with basically helpless individuals who are unable to properly cope with
the devastating effects a war has had upon them. The fact that Grave of the Fireflies manages to be so incredibly
expressive and lyrical even as it is emotionally devastating is perhaps its greatest achievement. This Blu-ray looks fine and
sounds great, and as long as you have a steady supply of tissues handy, Grave of the Fireflies comes Highly
recommended.
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