I watched two Studio Ghibli films recently - Grave of the Fireflies and The Wind Rises (I saw the sub-titled version, shame I didn't get to hear dreamy Joseph Gordon-Levitt's voice in the dubbed version). Both are set in WW2 - one cripplingly sad and mournfully depressing, the other - melancholy and grown up. Both are beautiful - like all SG films.
Despite being made 20 years apart, these two films really chimed! One of the many reasons why I just loved The Wind Rises is because at the start of the film you see Jiro (the main character) and his sister as children, and the pair of them together reminded me of the brother and sister in Grave of the Fireflies. In fact there are scenes at the start of both films where the bro and sis are in their gardens - and the scenes in both films are incredibly similar! So, I thought that The Wind Rises kind of gives an alternative ending to Grave of the Fireflies - where you can see how the children's lives could have been different. In a way, it makes me feel better about the sad Grave of the Fireflies ending.
