Berthier - Grave of the Fireflies

            The film Grave of the Fireflies was a tear jerking movie about two orphaned children during World War II who try to survive in the confused and panicked society they were brought up in. There are a lot of heart breaking aspects to this masterpiece, but the one that stood out to me the most, and was also an extremely important aspect throughout the whole plot, was the fact that every time they would try to get help adults, who were the only people who could potentially help these kids out, were the ones who shunned them and made them feel like they were worth less than dirt. I liked the article we read prior to watching the film because it shed a light on how accurate the movie actually was, and unfortunately how historically accurate the film is extremely depressing. I could not imagine the struggles those two poor kids had to go through, let alone living the way they did. Another interesting thing that I learned after I watched the film was that Grave of the Fireflies was originally a semi-autographical book. This brings to light a lot of the injustices that are going on in our world today that are extremely disheartening. I know that this takes place in the 1940’s but at the same time, there are still many injustices that our plaguing our modern existence. It is now more focused in Africa which is really sad because it is a lot harder to reach out to those in need over there because some of them don’t want the culture to be harmed by Americans. This is understandable, but sometimes there is a place in trying to help out those in need, no matter what the cost. The film also sort of reminded me of the Harp of Burma movie we watched last week because both main characters in the film end up wandering for most of their lives until the day they die. The only difference is that in Harp of Burma, it was the harpists choice to wander and in Grave of the Fireflies it was not.