Free Reflection

              The movie “Grave of the fireflies” which was directed by Isao Takahata is based on tough times that a little girl, named Setsuko, and her elder brother, named Seita, had during World War II. This movie is one of the most marvelous movies I have watched since it affected me deeply in different ways. First of all, the relationship between these siblings was very touchy because when they lost their parents due to the war, they were miserable, and there was no one apart from their aunt who was pitiless and treated them badly. That is why, they were all alone in those tough times, which is very depressing since they were just children and they had to be strong to survive. Moreover, they had no home to go, as a result of which they started to live in a cave. In that cave, they were spending many beautiful days despite all the hardships they had. In that case, I just admired the purity of the relationship between them because I understood that in hard times there will be no one who helps us, loves us as much as our families do. To exemplify, in the movie the young boy was always trying to be helpful to his little sister by acting as if there was no war because he did not want her to learn the sad truth. That is why, to make her sister full and happy Seita tried many ways to find some food, which was very hard for him because there was food scarcity in the country due to the war. Therefore, he even stole some vegetable in someone’s garden just to protect her sister from malnutrition. Despite all the effort he gave, her little sister could not be saved from dying of malnutrition. Therefore, I could not help crying while watching it. Secondly, I found the name of the movie so meaningful since in this film these two children were catching fireflies so that they could make use of the lights that these insects released and could make the cave light up. So, they were catching fireflies every day, but these insects were dying because their lifespan was too short, and thus, their cave became like a grave of the fireflies. Lastly, the fact that this movie is an adaptation of a novel, written by Akiyuki Nosaka, makes the film much touchier, because Akiyuki Nosaka wrote this novel to show that he feels sorry for his sister and to apologize to her since he could not save her from malnutrition during WW2. That is, this movie is based on a true story, and because of this reason, the impact of this kind of movies on me is always deep. In conclusion, I can say that the movie is exactly worth watching since it makes you realize that how big and pure love these siblings have for each other, and also makes you realize how badly wars affected human life.