This is the first line in the animated film "Grave of the Fireflies" directed by Hayao Miyazaki. I can't believe that I can watch this type of movie again if I don't have a special hobby for animation. After watching "Spirited Away" directed by Hayao Miyazaki, I watched this movie that reflects a pair of ordinary people in World War II in Japan. An animated film about the lives of brothers and sisters - "Grave of the Fireflies".
In fact, I read the Japanese novel "Grave of the Fireflies" last summer. The words in the book didn't impress me too deeply, and I couldn't draw those vivid images in my mind. Maybe my skill is not enough (I hardly read foreign literature), and I am even willing to believe that the audio-visual experience brought by the movie is more direct than the text.
"On the evening of September 21, the 20th year of the Showa era, I died..." The beginning of the story hints at a tragic ending. During World War II, Japan launched a large-scale war of aggression. Of course, it also suffered huge trauma caused by the war. People living in the shadow of the war cannot do without the word "tragic". This is particularly evident in the protagonist of the story. This is a pair of siblings, Seita and Setsuko, whose father was an officer in the Combined Fleet on the battlefield; their mother was killed in an air raid. Lonely, they had to turn to their relatives. It is not difficult to imagine the unfair treatment they suffered in their relatives' homes. Their living supplies were deducted, and the supplies they brought with them were also defrauded by relatives... Afterwards, they left their relatives' homes and started their own independent lives. .
I believe that an independent life after leaving relatives should be the most comfortable period of their war. Although they were in the air-raid shelter, they were not restrained. The brothers and sisters went swimming in the sea together, used the money in their mother's account to buy life necessities, and cooked together. The sister and brother were together, and they were very satisfied.
Since I personally have an irresistible liking for little girls, I always have a heartache for the sister in the movie. When she learned that her mother was killed in the air raid, she squatted on the empty playground of the school and wept alone. The pale sunlight pulled her shadow long; when she met her mother in a dream at night, she cried out loud, crying. The sound was so helpless; when she fainted in the air-raid shelter due to malnutrition, her brother took her to the doctor, and when she lifted her clothes, the protruding ribs and eczema all over her body were dazzling; She supplemented nutrition to steal sugar cane and was caught. She followed her all the way to the police station. When her brother came out, the two brothers and sisters hugged and cried. When she was about to die, she lay on the bed, picked up the hard stone beside her and handed it to her brother. The weak voice said: "Brother, this is a potato, eat it quickly"... These pictures are too heart-wrenching and heart-wrenching. They should not have suffered the trauma caused by the war, but the real society forced them to struggle like a boat in a storm, and their lively lives disappeared in the constant struggle.
What makes people feel a little warm is that in this struggle, her brother has been with her all the time, bringing her laughter and comfort to us. Her brother took her to see the flickering fireflies flying all over the summer night, which was very beautiful. Her brother took her to the beach to play, she ran and enjoyed the simple happiness in the shadow of war.
But she died in the end, in a dugout. At that moment, what was shown in the film were some fragments of the carefree life of the younger sister. She was sitting on the swing, she was holding a doll, she was holding a broken umbrella, she was shaking the iron sugar bowl, she was playful. Put the iron basin over her head... She died, like a firefly, and disappeared after a flash of light. But the irony is that in the villa across the lake from the bomb shelter, the family is reuniting. Maybe, this is society, "The wine and meat of Zhumen stink, and the road has frozen bones."
The elder brother cremated the body of the younger sister, and the younger sister's life was scattered in the evening wind like a wisp of blue smoke. The moment the flames go out, fireflies are flying all over the sky. After that, my brother also died in the train station. If the kingdom of heaven exists, they will definitely meet there, turn into fireflies, and fly freely and happily...
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