Of Movies #1

Some movies leave a scar.

I remember watching "Grave of the FireFlies" sometime during my UG days and it has left a deep one. I've seen tons of war, holocaust, apartheid movies, and documentaries that will make our skin crawl or get us depressed or angry or all of those at the same time. But none of them are animated. Sure, I've seen a few animated war movies too, but none as memorable and haunting as "Grave of the FireFlies". Isao Takahata's masterpiece will always remain one of the greatest movies ever made in the history of cinema. He also co-founded Studio Ghibli with the greatest, Hayao Miyazaki. I'd have never known about studio Ghibli or Miyazaki if not for a friend who introduced me to all this, for which I'll forever be thankful.

 

I did this painting a few weeks back. I happened to go through my gallery in search of my old college pictures, where I found a painting of artist Tom Lea, called "The 2000 Yard stare". It's such a powerful painting that depicts the emotional trauma of a soldier. This "2000-yard stare" is a common term associated with "shell shock" and PTSD after the war. It's called "thousand-yard stare" or "two-thousand-yard stare" to describe this detached, soulless empty stare into the abyss that the victims of war have. And it's not just war that causes this.
Anyway, this "2000 yard stare" painting reminded me of the "Grave of the FireFlies" movie. I did a quick digital painting of it, as I just couldn't get this picture out of my head.

#graveofthefireflies