FYI: Yasukuni screening in Tokyo

[Mark D. Roberts]

For anybody planning to see "Yasukuni" soon at Ciné Amuse in Shibuya,  
plan on getting there very early to purchase tickets. The theater is  
not very large, and screenings have been selling out every day in the  
morning (of course, it is Golden Week now). We arrived at 9:30  
yesterday and comfortably bought tickets for the 11 AM screening. By  
10:30 AM, the first three screenings of the day were sold out.

Security measures are significant. A police van has been parked in  
front of the theater, with a few cops outside, one inside, and one  
stationed on the stage, next to the screen itself. The entire front  
row of the theater has been roped off. When I sat down in the theater,  
a long metal object next to the police officer caught my eye. For a  
second, it almost seemed he was wearing a sword(!) but it fact it was  
the metal beam of a folding chair half concealed behind him — just an  
optical illusion in low light.

As others have remarked, the film is evidently intended to provoke  
reflection and discussion. There are a number of things that could be  
"explained" but which are left open. The framing device for the whole  
film is an extended conversation with sword maker Naoji Kariya, which  
I found rather enigmatic. Kariya comes across as alternately taciturn,  
reflective, willing and unwilling to speak. He alludes to memories of  
his time forging swords at Yasukuni, but we only get tidbits about his  
past. Li Ying prompts him to speak, but there are long moments of  
silence. He asks Li for his own views on the Yasukuni controversy, but  
Li doesn't answer, preferring to let the question fall back on Kariya  
himself. The dynamics of their exchange recalled that more recently,  
there has been some flap about whether Kariya wanted his interview  
removed from the film or not. Based upon Li Ying's own account of  
working with Kariya, it seems very hard to believe, but there are  
definitely moments when the man seems reluctant to speak on camera. Of  
course, this could be for many different reasons, and Li seems very  
much correct in questioning the motives of the LDP in pursuing this  
line of discussion about the film. Does anybody know if Li and/or  
Kariya have made any further statements to clarify the situation?

The bulk of the film conveys the ambiance of public spectacle  
surrounding Yasukuni itself, including a tense and moving visit by the  
descendants of war dead from Taiwan, Korea, and Okinawa. The latter  
sequence brings to the surface one of (for me, at least) the key  
questions at the heart of the Yasukuni controversy in Japan: viz. to  
whom do the dead belong? In a sense, it could be said that this  
conflict has a structure akin to classical tragedy. Do the dead  
soldiers belong to the family, or do they belong to the State for  
which they fought? Li's film sets out this question, but offers no  
reply from the Yasukuni priests (not even the official line that the  
kami cannot be separated from the sword), underscoring that the shrine  
is unwilling to explore the matter.

The third element that stands out is the closing montage sequence set  
to Gorecki's Third Symphony. This forms a kind of historical coda to  
the contemporary images of Yasukuni, and the counterpoint of memory to  
music makes it one of the more emotionally deliberate parts of the  
film. Significantly, Li places this montage at the end, so that we  
move, roughly, from present to past. We see various défilé of mounted  
officers, celebratory processions, kendo practice, the military  
invasion of China, stills from Nanking, and a number of visits by  
Hirohito, all bracketed by aerial views of the shrine. What stands out  
in this montage is the clear significance of Yasukuni for Japan's  
military and imperial past, and I would assume it is this element of  
the film that likely provoked some of the controversy among the LDP.  
The overall construction of film implies rather clearly that whatever  
the contemporary role of Yasukuni, it also has an irreducible  
historical significance that we should understand and remember as well.

There's a lot more to be said, but those were the points that struck  
me in one viewing.

M