WIT Life #167: Japan and War as Seen Through the Lens of Film
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Recently I had the chance to see two films from 2010 that examine the issue of Japan and war. One was Anpo: Art x War which was screened at Columbia University last week, and the other is Caterpillar currently being shown at the IFC Center through this Thursday. The former is a documentary directed and produced by Linda Hoaglund, and the latter is a film made by the director Koji Wakamatsu of United Red Army fame (shown at Japan Society a few years ago and coming to IFC later this month).
Anpo uses a mixture of paintings, photos, anime, films and music by Japanese artists to express the story of resistance to U.S. military bases. The 1960 Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (日米安全保障条約: Nichibei Anzen Hoshou Jouyaku or 安保: Anpo for short) strengthened Japan’s ties to the West during the Cold War and laid the basis for future international cooperation and economic cooperation. It also guaranteed a U.S. military presence in Japan, which lasts until today and remains just as contentious (i.e. the Futenma Marine Base in Okinawa).
The democratic movement in opposition to Anpo was called the 安保反対運動 (anpo hantai undou), but came to an end after the death of a female protestor. During the Q&A following the film, Hoaglund shared that she became interested in the topic after stumbling on some 60s Anpo art, which is actually largely unfamiliar to the Japanese themselves (one scene in the film shows them bringing a piece out of storage from a modern art museum). The cameraman she worked with had filmed the original protests in the 60’s, so working on the documentary truly brought things full circle for him. Hoagland highlighted that we are seeing the theme of distrust of government repeating itself today in regard to the nuclear situation. A recent anti nuclear power demonstration in Tokyo numbered 25,000, so despite how complacent people say Japanese society has become, resistance is still clearly alive and well.
Wakamatsu’s 
work deals with a soldier’s return from the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1940 after having lost all of his limbs. This lieutenant receives accolades from the Emperor and is designated a Living War God by the community in which he lives. He is left in the hands of his wife for her to take care of all his needs, a responsibility described as being her duty for the empire. All of the actions that everybody takes are framed in the context of being “for the country,” and archival footage is interspersed throughout the film so you really have a strong sense of the period.
Although the sex scenes are disturbing, they were easier for me to sit through than the more gruesome Japanese student-radical extremism depicted in Wakamatsu’s film United Red Army (I must confess my stomach couldn’t handle the violence). Caterpillar was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, and an interview with Wakamatsu regarding the making of the movie can be found here (scroll down to the bottom). It will be running at IFC through Thursday, so don’t miss this powerful anti-war commentary on Japanese nationalism.
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