"Look mummy, there's an aeroplane up in the sky"

Rating: Null/10 (25 March 2009)

Recently I purchased two Isao Takahata films on DVD, I got Pom Poko and Grave of the Fireflies being this one the one of which I heard many positive things. I knew what to expect certainly, if you come here and read some reviews of Grave of the Fireflies one of the adjectives you will read more is "heartbreaking", for me this is almost too heartbreaking to even consider to watch it again but don't get me wrong since I actually, and simply, loved Grave of the Fireflies and it is a must-see piece of animation.
Japan 1945, civilians need to be ready since at any moment aeroplanes will be over their heads and then it happens, first attack we see and there we have our main characters, the siblings Seita (voice of Tsutomu Tatsumi) and Setsuko (voice of Ayano Shiraishi), almost not surviving the attack, surviving outside a bomb shelter actually. Seita has his father serving to the Navy, certainly Seita himself, just like his little sister and his mother (voice of Yoshiko Shinohara), is not only worried because the man of his house is away but also because they are not safe at all where they are. We see only once Seita and Setsuko's mother, for a reason our siblings can't go together with their mother to the bomb shelter, they won't see again their mother and we won't see in many moments Seita alone or Setsuko alone, certainly each one of them has only the other.
Like a month ago or so I wrote my IMDb comment of another true must-see piece of animation, Waltz with Bashir is its English title. I put in the title of my comment a line of "Goodbye Blue Sky", a Pink Floyd song from the brilliant 1979 album The Wall, and I will write that same line here: "The flames are all gone, but the pain lingers on". So in Grave of the Fireflies after the attack that results in many people dead including Seita and Setsuko's mother the flames are not gone, the bombs will continue to fall, Seita and Setsuko will be safe using a bomb shelter. At this point we already know a character that is a familiar of the siblings, we know their aunt (voice of Akemi Yamaguchi), after their mother passed away their aunt's house is the only their aunt's place is where the siblings must went so at this point at least there's some hope in the way of having someone else who cares about them, about their safety. Meanwhile the war goes on the food is less and less, at one very relevant point the aunt gets a good quantity of rice thanks to the clothes of the siblings' mother, the three enjoy a good meal. Actually in the aunt's house live another two persons, her daughter and a student, productive persons that do something for society unlike Seita and Setsuko, that's just how the aunt sees things so since Seita and Setsuko practically don't do anything during the day well they don't deserve more rice and stuff, and they won't have it. Which is interesting is that the aunt's daughter and the other guy never said a thing but anyway that was a complete change of the aunt.
There are many real touching moments, from the one that gives meaning to the title to when Setsuko says to her brother that she only wants that he stay with her. But actually those moments came after Seita and Setsuko decided to live by themselves away from their aunt. There are moments in which we see the siblings maybe just for some minutes but still we see them forgetting what's going on, they enjoy the sea and is when they are enjoying a moment by playing a piano and singing when their relation with their aunt will finally end. So in an extremely difficult period for the aunt you can't have a single moment of peace, a single moment with some laughs. The aunt enters and says something like "stop, don't you know we are in war? Is not the time to have parties, you don't have education". She is asking to two young persons that are alone because of the war if they don't know that Japan is in war, is the last time we and the siblings see the aunt. When the war is over the siblings will not even realize about that fact, sure now war is over but their lives as they knew were over much long before, extremely touching, Grave of the Fireflies is nothing but a piece of work that you must see.