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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/23/grave-of-the-fireflies-review
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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Grave of the Fireflies – review | Grave of the Fireflies – review |
| (4 months later) | |
| If you thought Bambi or Up were as emotional as animation gets, you need to see this Japanese masterpiece. It's a war story as wrenching as any live-action movie, and it has reduced many a viewer to tears – this one included. Based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical novel, it is focused on a teenager and his sister struggling to survive at the tail end of the second world war, and it records their plight with unsentimental intimacy. Not many cartoons would depict a boy seeing his mother's burnt, maggot-infested corpse being stretchered away, for example, but that's just the start of their traumas. Parentless and homeless, they are forced to wander the countryside, beset by hunger, American bombings and the self-serving indifference of adults. It's not all suffering and desperation, though. There are magical moments of natural beauty and childish delight, too – which only make the tragedy even more harrowing. | If you thought Bambi or Up were as emotional as animation gets, you need to see this Japanese masterpiece. It's a war story as wrenching as any live-action movie, and it has reduced many a viewer to tears – this one included. Based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical novel, it is focused on a teenager and his sister struggling to survive at the tail end of the second world war, and it records their plight with unsentimental intimacy. Not many cartoons would depict a boy seeing his mother's burnt, maggot-infested corpse being stretchered away, for example, but that's just the start of their traumas. Parentless and homeless, they are forced to wander the countryside, beset by hunger, American bombings and the self-serving indifference of adults. It's not all suffering and desperation, though. There are magical moments of natural beauty and childish delight, too – which only make the tragedy even more harrowing. |
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