Grave of the Fireflies

Last night was one of those moments when an unexpected
piece, like a poem, story or a movie can catch you totally
off guard and leave you dumbfounded.

Set in the midst of WWII Japan, 'Grave of the fireflies'
is an anime depicting two orphans living in a rural village.
Mother of the siblings die in the air raid, and their father
is serving the imperial Japanese army. Kicked out by
relatives out of their home, they are forced to live their lives
in the streets and in abandoned, bombed shackles. The pain
of the sister, tiny four year old Setsuko, who cannot
understand the harsh realities of full blown war, escaping
from air raids, missing her mother, battling hunger and
rashes all over her body, watching his brother beaten up
by a farmer for stealing food for her while trying to help
him in her own small ways, is just heart wrenching.
The brother, fourteen year old Seita, though being a proud
male, is just a small boy with too much pride and cannot
compromise that with the world, which is partly to blame
for the death of Setsuko. This is a story of two orphans
with no hope except the fireflies in their hands to light up
their little ravaged shelter. The movie does not try to take
advantage or leverage itself on the portrayal of war and
chronic poverty, but instead keeps those issues subdued and
builds around total anonymousness of two helpless children
surrounded by war and deprivation. Deprivation if of lost
childhood, running from bombs falling down and left to die.
That in turn succeeds in carrying out pain of the whole
nation in a numbing silence, the famine, the destruction,
the humiliation of ordinary people in a proud nation, whose
Emperor threw them into the world war.

I dunno if I will be able to watch this movie again, if I do,
it will definitely not be without my eyes going watery.