The Problems of Youth

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2004)

Like a lot of anime, this movie focuses very heavily on very general problems of youth with the war as a background. The two central characters is a fourteen-year-old brother and his four-year-old sister, who may sometimes be portrayed as being uncomfortably intimate. Orphaned by the war, the older brother struggles to make a decent living for himself and his sister.
We find out at the beginning that the two are doomed to fail. The rest of the film is a flashback. What's at stake, then, is why or how they fail.
It is in this respect that the film is surprising and very much worth your time. Don't expect the couple to die from invaders, shrapnel wounds, or other cliches of wartime heroism. Their failure results from a very believable combination of social indifference, psychological anguish, and quixotic naivete. The protaganists partly struggle for physical survival, but also to a very large part struggle for happiness, fullfillment of desires, and other idealistic goals. "Grave" asks, what is the cost of dignity?
This movie is also very much worth your time if you're a fan of anime. Anime from "Akira" to "Princess Mononoke" has distinguished itself by containing cutting edge portrayals of the idealism and energy of youth, to the extent that the central male figure of these movies may come together to form an archetype of what is considered noble and admirable behavior. Only, in "Grave of Fireflies", idealism is shown to have its consequences. To me, this is why "Grave" stands out -- it is a clear-eyed examination of what exactly it means to be young and idealistic. And, this time, the answer isn't all that uplifting.