Pandora’s Box

In my eyes Studio Ghibli's film, Grave of the Fireflies, was shockingly realistic depiction of the commonly underappreciated effects of modern warfare.  The first thing most people think of when talking about a war is the soldiers fighting it, and their suffering.  However, this film chooses to focus on the effects a war has on a country’s citizens.  It is through the depiction of the effects of war on everyday citizens’, Seita and Setsuko, lives that this film really gains its powerful impact on viewers.  The focus of this film is very openly anti-war and anti-violence, and on several accounts presents the message that engaging in war is like opening Pandora’s Box.  In other words, war itself creates and encourages violence and crime, even after the war has ended.  Examples of this are, the Japanese society’s abandonment of Seita and Setsuko (which should be a crime), Seita’s thievery, and the farmers assault on Seita.  Some may argue that these crimes are already present in a prewar society.  However, the people who are forced to commit these acts in a postwar society, like Seita, wouldn’t have dreamed of committing them before the war.  It is through this shift in mentality that war leads a person to disregard his/her neighbor’s needs, and instead focus on meeting their own at all costs.

On another note, I appreciated the fact that the film wasn’t in English, and that I had to rely on subtitles.  This cultural gap made Seita and Setsuko seem even more distant and cut off from the viewer’s world.  Obviously, there isn’t anything the viewer can do to help Seita and Setsuko, but any ethical person would feel obligated to try and help them.  The language barrier only acts to further separate the viewer from the events of the film, and emphasize this feeling of sympathy towards the characters.

All in all, I thought that this was a powerful film which succeeded in conveying its antiwar message through the use of powerful emotions, and its creation of “real” characters.

On a side note, the picture below stuck me as a powerful commentary on the failure of the Japanese society to protect Seita and Setsuko from the effects of the war, as seen through the umbrella’s similar failure to shield them.