Cullum, Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies was one of the most depressing and slightly life changing films I have ever seen. There are very few films in the world that could move you the way Grave of the Fireflies could move you. The film follows two siblings’ struggle for survival and love for each other. At the very beginning of the film, you discover that whatever the two siblings are going through, they do not survive it. Throughout the whole course of the movie you find yourself wishing they will live; that there will be a happy ending. 

The film takes place during the years of 1944-1945, at the very end of WWII. In the beginning of the movie, you see a man throw a fruit tin can, that he picks off a corpse, into some grass. The lid comes off and fireflies and Setsuko emerge from it. Setsuko sees the body of her dead brother and her eyes get wide at the sight of her brother. Before she can reach the body, her big brothers hand is on her shoulder and the flashback starts.

Seita, the big brother, and Setsuko, the little sister, find themselves orphaned after the bombing of their home, Kobe’. Their mother has passed away due to fatal wounds after the bombing and their father has died fighting for their country. In my opinion, one of the most moving elements in the film is how much Seita tries to protect Setsuko and how you can see how much they love each other just by their actions towards one another. 

The two lived with their aunt, briefly, but left their aunts house because she was treating them so unfairly. He even gave them the supplies he had buried at his house. He kept one thing from his former life and that was a fruit tin can. She was giving them really small portions and took half of the rice that Seita bought with the money he got from selling his mother’s kimonos. She was taking their rations and half of the rice that was rightfully theirs’. When they are one their own, farmers won’t sell them rice because they don’t even have enough for themselves.

        The two find themselves all alone, living in an abandoned air-raid shelter and poor.  One night, Setsuko brings a bunch of fireflies into the shelter and they light up the room. The two experience a short-lived moment of happiness together. When Setsuko wakes up and finds then dead, she buries every single one and asks why did they die, why do they live such short lives and why did their mother died. This is an important scene. Fireflies are beautiful creatures, but they have short lives. You appreciate them more because you don’t see them a lot. Setsuko, Seita and their mother are like fireflies. In the eyes of children, mothers are very important, beautiful people. Their mother, like the fireflies, had a short life. Setsuko and Seita also died very young. The point Nosaka is trying to make is that life is beautiful but it is short so appreciate it as much as you can until you burn out and die.

        Setsuko becomes malnutritioned and the doctors won’t give them food to feed her. At a last hope, Seita goes to the bank to take out all of his mothers money to buy food to save her even though Setsuko begs him not to leave her. When he gets back, Setsuko is on the edge of death and is hallucinating. Seita’s younger sister Setsuko dies and he gives her a proper burial. He uses some of the money to buy a really nice ‘coffin’ to cremate her in and keeps some of her ashes in his fruit tin can. Seita dies not long after his sister. 

Cullum, Harp of Burma

Harp of Burma is a two-part anime film adaptation of the famous Japanese novel Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama. It is set towards the end of WWII. After my research about it on the internet, I found that it was also adapted into a Japanese film named The Burmese Harp and follows the same story. After reading Death and Other Bad Stuff in Samurai from Outer Space and watching the film, I came to a conclusion. The Japanese have no problem talking about death, whilst in America, bringing up the topic sets a kind of depressing mood in a conversation and is to be avoided. 

In Harp of Burma I could not stop thinking ‘Muzishima is so loyal’ and I kept wanting to say ‘spiritual’. He did not join his battalion in returning home because he wanted to bury his fellow Japanese soldiers. I think it is amazing how loyal Japanese soldiers are to each other and to their country. After reading War Films Depict Japan as a Misunderstood Victim I also could not help but think, ‘is this how loyal they really are or is this how they want everyone else to think they are?’ 

I do think the Japanese are depicted as poor pitiful victims after reading War Films Depict Japan as a Misunderstood Victim. Then again, there are far more films produced by Japanese directors than there are one produced by American directors. The Japanese don’t have a problem with discussing death. It is a natural part of life and it happens to everyone. Another big difference in Japanese and American views on death is suicide. In America, suicide is a way out that cowards take. As America is predominantly Christian, as Americans we see suicide as a sin. In the Japanese culture, for samurai, ritual suicide is praised and is honorable; this idea is true for most other battle situations. In Harp of Burma the Japanese soldiers accept the fact that they might all die now that the fighting has stopped. Sure, they may be sad about it, but they accept it. The Japanese accept the fact that the world is an amoral place. 

Cullum, Ghost in a Cyber-Shell

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       For some reason, the whole time I was watching this movie, I kept thinking about the movie called Surrogates, with Bruce Willis, and that movie scares me. Not because its meant to be a horror film, its actually quite good, but its set in the future and people hook themselves up to a computer and live their life through a cybernetic version of themselves (or whatever they want to be, look like, ect). Which brings me to the point I'm trying to make here, technology scares me, but it also fascinates me. I really enjoyed Ghost in the Shell because of the fact that a lot of it has to do with technology and how you can manipulate it to make it a bad thing. It also has a little bit of corruption in there, like in Botchan. Let's not forget another big issue in this film : identity crisis. In Black Swan and in Perfect Blue the main characters were going through MAJOR identity problems. 

The movie is set in the year 2029. Technology is far more advanced than it was when the movie was made, and pretty far off of what technology we have today. I feel like, the way we depend on technology now, that one day the world as we know it might be similar to the one in this film. In Akira technology is used to basically stalk the population and control them subconsciously. In Ghost in the Shell, people are able to be brain hacked. There is a character called ‘the puppeteer’ and its hacking into people and causing all kinds of rukus. The creator of the puppeteer ends up being Sector 6 and the government. Let’s be honest here, if the idea of someone being able to ‘brain hack’ you doesn’t scare you, you deserve to be brain hacked. 

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In Ghost in the Shell a lot of the world is cyborg, and of course there are still some humans.  In the film, they have cyberneticlly enhanced cops. The main one were focused on in the movie is Major Motoko Kusanagi and she is 95% cyborg, I think, and she was cyborged at a very young age. In our world, modern day and how it has been forever, people have always questioned their identities. People are constatly asking themselves ‘what is my purpose’ ‘why am I here’ ‘who am I’ ‘who do I want to be.’ In the film, the characters are doing the very same thing. The main one is our very own Major Motoko. In Perfect Blue Mima goes through a similar identity issue. Mima has everyone telling her who she should be and people even try to murder her and rape her because she isn’t being who they want her to be. Motoko isn’t even human (mostly), so try to think of the questions about identity she is asking herself. 

       

Cullum, VAMPIRES VAMPIRES VAMPIRES

As soon as I got about 20 minutes into Vampire Hunter D, it had already started reminding me of Blade. I’m a huge scary movie buff, which naturally includes vampire movies! From sixth grade up until sophomore year, I was completely obsessed with all things vampire. I was not obsessed with vampires because of Twilight, like every other vampire crazed girl. I was obsessed with vampires because of The Southern Vampire Series (Sookie Stackhouse Series) written by the lovely Charlaine Harris. When I opened up a signed copy of one of her books, and a picture of her holding it, for Christmas Sophomore year, I could have died happy in that moment. The point of this is, I know an embarrassing amount of information about vampires. 

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Since the blog prompt said to write about anything pertaining to vampires, that we wanted, I will talk about my favorite movies. My three all time favorite vampire movies are Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (because lets be honest, this one was Bada$$), Interview with a Vampire and THE amazing Lost Boys. Underworld is so amazing to me because it talks about the origins of both vampires and lycans. I also love how they tie in this intricate love story and the cold heartedness of vampires in this particular film. For those of you who haven’t seen this one, the ‘king’s’ servant lycan named Lucian and the ‘king’s’ daughter, Sonja, (a vampire) fall in love, and she becomes pregnant with a hybrid baby. Her father burns her in the sun room and makes the Lucian watch. He ends up getting together all the lycans and they revolt against the vampires, creating a never ending war between lycans and vampires. 

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Interview with a Vampire is so amazing because it shows what being a vampire who doesn’t want to be one is like. A vampire named Lestat turns a man named Louis, who hates his life, into a vampire. This movie covers the life of Louis from right before he got turned into a vampire up until the moment he is telling the story. Lestat puts Louis through some rough sh!t. Louis is forced to drink human blood, Louis is a vampire with a mortal consciousness and even brings a dying young girl named Claudia (played by the wonderful Kirsten Dunst) into the immortal life of a vampire (to save her from dying of Yellow Fever). I think the fact that this is a wonderfully written story by Anne Rice (which surpirsed me when I first read the book) and was adapted just as wonderfully on the big screen is one of the reasons I am so intrigued by this story of a very compassionate vampire named Louis. It is also set in New Orleans and it has a bit of a history lesson in it also, and I love history. 

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The last film on my favorites list is The Lost Boys! I like vampire films that portray vampires as they are meant to be portrayed; as scary monsters that should be feared!! If you haven’t seen The Lost Boys yet, you need to rent it or watch it online on Megavideo right now. Its an awesome old movie. There is so much information about vampirism in it, that you could make a small Vampire for Dummies pamphlet from it. This movie follows the story of two teenage boys who have just moved to Santa Carla, California. Michael, one of brothers, angers the leader of the vampire motorcycle gang named David, by falling for his girlfriend named Star.  David turns Michael into a vampire and his younger brother Sam enlists in the help of the Frog brothers to help him turn his brother back into a human. The Frog Brothers are vampire hunters. In the end, *SPOILER ALERT, READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS AMAZING MOVIE*, David is killed and all of the vampires he has turned, become human again.