One Viewing and You Will Know

Rating: 10/10 (6 January 2008)

Let me just state before anything else: 10/10. And not just a begrudging, 'I can't find anything wrong with it soo...' kind of ten, but a very solid and well earned and freely given 10/10.
OK, now that we've gotten that out of the way. Wow! This movie reminds me of the phenomenon James Joyce describes in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as 'aesthetic arrest'. Basically, he divides all media into high art and pornography. He states that anything purporting itself as art that resorts to playing on the emotional responses of the consumer is actually just pornography. So if you find yourself overly moved on an emotional level, you have actually experienced low, pornographic art. If, however, the film (or other work) causes 'aesthetic arrest'; a feeling that transcends emotion and makes the consumer nail him or herself to the spot and experience the work over and over; makes one question his or her own responses and definitions of truth, beauty and the like; the consumer is in aesthetic arrest and the work represents high art. In short, low art affects the glands whilst high art affects the soul. 'Grave of the Fireflies' certainly seems to fit well in that latter category.
I found this movie so amazing because it always had me on the verge of tears but never made cry. At 88 minutes, every image and every sound carries significance with nothing in just for the sake of bathos and sentimentality. Rarely does one find a cartoon where inanimate objects hold such deep symbolic meanings on their own, with no attempts made to underscore or personify them with wacky celebrity voices.
Making this film as anime was the obvious way to go. If it had featured live-action, I think the sadness of the story would have overpowered the beauty of the message. I don't think I would have been able to watch real actors go through the events experienced by the animated characters. These animated performances somehow seem to transcend acting. They seem more indelible, more real to me. I am tempted to buy this movie, but then, I don't see why I should since one viewing seems to have grafted these images onto my very soul.
Indescribably haunting, human and surreal. Best cartoon I've ever seen and up there with Citizen Kane, Naked and the other Great Ones