Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

I can imagine that some would say that Grave of the Fireflies (dir. Isao Takahata), an animated film about the horrors of WWII that has now become a classic, is sentimental and that it relies too much on metaphor. I did not react that way. Instead, I would say that beauty was not used to relieve the horror shown within the film, beauty was not mere decorum. The story is set at the end of the war. Japan is bombed and people suffer. The main characters, two children, are orphaned and they have to find somewhere to live and food to eat. Grave of the Fireflies follow them from a relative's home to a desolate bomb shelter by the river. The animation (which a film like Waltz with Bashir is somewhat indebted to) works brilliantly to capture the children's world of gloom but also moments of magic. Strangely, Takahata insisted that the film was not anti-war. This is extremely hard to understand, considering the film's extremely bleak exploration of the ruins of Japan during the war. The film - at least as I interpreted it - also focused on the accusations and false images of heroism that war breeds. The message? No heroism, just people who survive or do not survive.