Grave of the Fireflies - Gaza

Curator's note: 

This poster is a remix based on a famous Japanese anti-war animated film titled Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata

EXCERPT

Themes and analysis

In his book about the film, Alex Dudok de Wit called Grave of the Fireflies an "unusually personal adaptation" of Nosaka's short story as Takahata had similar experiences during the war, though noted it deviated significantly in its portrayal of the children as ghosts in its opening sequence whereas the short story began immediately with the children losing their mother during the air raid.

Some critics in the West have viewed Grave of the Fireflies as an anti-war film due to the graphic and emotional depiction of the pernicious repercussions of war on a society, and the individuals therein. The film focuses its attention almost entirely on the personal tragedies that war gives rise to, rather than seeking to glamorize it as a heroic struggle between competing nations. It emphasizes that war is society's failure to perform its most important duty: to protect its own people.

However, Takahata repeatedly denied that the film was an anti-war film. In his own words, it "is not at all an anti-war anime and contains absolutely no such message". Instead, Takahata had intended to convey an image of the brother and sister living a failed life due to isolation from society and invoke sympathy particularly in people in their teens and twenties.

Takahata also describes Japan at that time as "repressive", a time when "totalitarianism at its lowest" was endorsed in social life. He said "Seita defies such totalitarianism and tries to build a 'pure family' with Setsuko alone. Is such a thing possible? No, it is not possible, so he lets Setsuko die. [...] But can we criticize him? The reason why we modern people can easily sympathize with Seita emotionally is because the times have reversed. If the times are reversed again someday, the time may come when many people have more opinions to denounce Seita than that widow. I find it frightening."

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies#Themes_and_analysis