The Fireflies of Isao Takahata
April 5 was a sad day in the world of animation. Isao Takahata, one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli, passed away in Tokyo of lung cancer, aged 82. Calling him a “great filmmaker” would sound like an understatement. I would say he was among the greatest in the last 100 years. Takahata — and fellow Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki — can be seen in the elite club of auteurs which is graced by the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Vittorio De Sica and a handful of other filmmakers from around the world.
Sad is perhaps the most appropriate feeling which those who have seen Takahata’s works would be relating to following his demise — the prolific filmmaker had this incredible power to make us grieve with the characters of his films.
Born on October 29, 1935, in Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan, Takahata graduated from the University of Tokyo and immediately began his career in animation at the Toei studio in 1959. It was at Toei where he met Miyazaki, who many have described as both his friend and rival.
Takahata, to many, was like a Jedi knight who, with his powers of the force, would enter the deepest corner of our minds and tug at the nerves which trigger our bemoaning emotions. Only that his ‘force’ was his skill with storytelling and the emotions were for the characters of his story.
I have seen only three of his works. The first of those I saw is hailed around the world as his greatest — ‘Grave of the Fireflies’. Released in 1988, this animated movie revolves around the lives of a very young brother-sister duo who are suddenly thrown into the middle of the chaos that followed the last days of World War II. Their suffering through the turmoil can make even a stone cry. A human that I am, I could not hold back my tears after watching the movie. It was as if Seita and Setsuko, the brother and sister, respectively, grabbed my soul and took it with them as they transformed into the titular fireflies.
The West sees the movie as an anti-war film, but Takahata (and even I) see it as a film which aptly shows how humans deal with the concept of humanity in times of terrible crisis.
Anyone would confess that ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ left them with a mildly strong sense of depression — something they may never have felt after watching a movie. In my case, a strong willpower helped in a quick rescue from that abyss of heart-wrenching agony the film left me into. Of course, some help came from a nonsensical romantic comedy that I watched soon after just to recover from that heavy feeling of anguish. (For the best way to counter the effect of something is to use something that has an exactly opposite effect!)
Yet the movie was etched into my mind like commandments in granite. And thus was born the appreciation for the phenomenal Isao Takahata.
It should not come as a surprise to anyone that ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is counted among the three saddest films of all time in any list compiled by genuine cinema aficionados. It is the only animated film to command such a distinction, and that is what made everyone appreciate the genius of Takahata.
Animated characters are different than humans. Our brains know beforehand that what we are watching are mere projections of hand-drawn comic book art, which are intended to be funny. Since animations had their foundation in comic books, they began with presentations of the funnier sides of things. For instance, Walt Disney’s animation brought the necessary laughter in the lives of those whose daily existence was as boring as the oscillating pendulum, dour if not completely bitter. Thus the general impression of animation is that it is light, is characterised by a strong sense of humour, and is fantastical. No one perceives animation to make them cry. And this is the perception that Takahata broke while leaving behind his signature.
His second great work that I saw, ‘The Tale of Princess Kaguya’, was nominated in the Best Animated film category in the 87th Academy Awards. The film tells us the story of a little girl who is found in the woods by a woodcutter, who raises her and names her as the titular Princess Kaguya. We learn later that Kaguya is from the Moon who was sent to Earth as a punishment for breaking a law. The rest of the story is about her experiences of the mortal world and her fate.
Released in 2013, this film, too, produced a lugubrious effect on the audiences — though lower than that of 'Grave of the Fireflies’. Those who saw it felt the pain of Kaguya and those of her loved ones. In their hearts, the viewers wanted Kaguya to find the suitor she longed for and for her parents to live happily with her. Takahata left his mark with this animated gem as well. The film is also remarkably different from other Studio Ghibli works because of the colouring, frame movement and art. Every scene appears like a meticulously drawn piece of painting in watercolour by some renowned artist.
But Takahata did not deal only in tragic tales; he also had in his repertoire comedy, fantasy and slice-of-life stories in the form of 1999’s ‘My Neighbours the Yamadas’, 1994’s ‘Pom Poko’ and 1991’s ‘Only Yesterday’. Takahata also produced two of Studio Ghibli’s better known works which were directed by the iconic Miyazaki — 1984’s ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ and 1986’s ‘Castle in the Sky’. His last gift to fans of this specific kind of animation was the 2016 Dutch-Japanese film ‘The Red Turtle’, which won the Un Certain Regard Special Prize at Cannes.
Takahata, whose first name means ‘meritorious’ when written in Kanji (Japanese writing system), was certainly an auteur who understood the depth of human emotions and had the gift of making humans take note of their own failings through his captivating and unforgettable tearjerkers.
Studio Ghibli has lost its co-founder. The world of animation has lost a gifted director. Storytelling has lost a masterful storyteller. Yet his fans, like me, will never lose him for his fireflies live in our minds.
