FYI: Yasukuni screening in Tokyo

[Rob Schwartz]

Hi All-

Here is an article I wrote for the No. 1 Shimbun (the FCCJ newspaper) about
Yasukuni. It more addresses the points that were discussed last time around
on this film but I hope everyone finds it interesting. I think David
MacNeill's interview with Li showed that he doesn't really view this as a
non-political film. obviously this piece was written before the Tokyo
theaters stepped up and agreed to show the film.

Rob Schwartz

Welcome to the Conflict of a 'Peaceful Country'

Li Ying's award-winning documentary "Yasukuni" has been making headlines in
Japan, but not for the reasons the filmmaker would like. The work, which
portends to be an impartial look at the famous shrine in Kudanshita that
honors Japan's war dead, has spurred numerous controversies, with the most
depressing being the fact that public in Tokyo will not get to judge the
piece for itself, as major theaters in the metropolis have pulled their
screenings.

Points that are worth noting, however, are not only the film's content, and
reaction from various sector's of Japanese society, but also the context
into which it blithely and, perhaps not-so-innocently, stepped. Yasukuni
(literally 'Peaceful Country') Shrine has been a touchstone of the Ultra
Right in Japan since the end of World War II, and any documentary, even an
"impartial" one would be subject to controversy. Throw into the mix here a
Chinese director (albeit one who lives in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese)
and the Rightists will obviously be extremely suspicious if not overtly
hostile unless the content of the work represents their rather skewed and
historically inaccurate position to the T.

For his part Mr. Li  has claimed that the piece is a "love letter to the
Japanese people" and that the film has no political content. A close viewing
however reveals a somewhat different reality. Li has captured much gripping
cinema verite footage at the Shrine itself, and here the whole spectrum of
political viewpoints are represented without narration or editorial comment..
The director has even captured on screen an American who was there to
support then Prime Minister Koizumi's visit to the controversial site in
2005. By and large the reaction of the crowd around the American was
(unsurprisingly) very friendly, but, in an interesting twist, the American
is sent of the grounds because he is display the flag of his home country,
apparently a no-no at this Ultra Nationalist landmark. Intercut with these
scenes from Yasukuni, mainly shot on the 60th anniversary of Japan's
surrender, is an interview that Li conducted with a maker of "Yasukuni
swords", Naoji Kariya, 90 at the time of filming. The sword maker has been
turning out the blades for 72 years, and in addition to watching the man
work, Li queries him on the political associations with the shrine. Kariya
is reluctant to make any comment, but his craftsmanship and workshop do make
compelling viewing.

If these two elements, Kariya and footage from the Shrine, made up the
entirety of the work, and they do take up 110 of 120 minutes, Li's claim
about the doc being non-political might be accurate. In fact, in the last 10
minutes of the piece Li has archival footage from the massacre of Nanjing,
powerful, gut-wrenching images. Given that the historical portrayal of this
atrocity is one of the major sources of tension between Japan and China
today it is inconceivable that Li did not know how this portion of the film
would be received in Japan. Even further, Li has managed to secure until-now
unseen footage of Emperor Showa at the shrine, and this is edited between
gruesome shots of the brutality at Nanjing.

The message is unmistakable.

Further, Li, a long term resident of Japan, must be at least somewhat
familiar with the context into which this documentary steps. That is, the
Ultra Right in Japan have been exceedingly aggressive at attacking film that
they disagree with. In 1998, when Ziniu Wu's feature Nanjing 1937 got a
showing at a small theater in Yokohama letters of protest were  sent and the
ubiquitous Ultra Right sound trucks harassed the establishment. Finally a
rightist slashed the screen, delaying the showing. In 2001, prior to the
opening of Japanese Devils, a documentary featuring ex-Japanese soldiers
admitting to their torture of Chinese prisoners, the highly respected Image
Forum Theater received numerous threats and demands to cease the showings
from Ultra Rightists, who railed against the piece.

In this highly politicized context comes 'Yasukuni'. To be sure the gutless
cinema managers who caved to Rightist pressure should be excoriated for
suppressing freedom of speech. Li's documentary offers valuable insight into
the battle for the Japanese psyche concerning Yasukuni Shrine, and by
immediate extension, Japan's wartime actions and Post-war recounting of that
history. With this in mind one might take with a grain of salt Li's
proclamation that his film is not a political one, nor has any particular
viewpoint. Further, an astute social observer like Mr. Li no doubt had an
understanding of the kind of controversy his film would engender, all the
more so because he solicited, and received, 7.5 million yen from the Office
of Cultural Affairs for his production, a fact right wing Diet member Tomomi
Inada is furious about. In the end, it seems both sides are quite cognizant
of what is at stake, this is a political battle for the consciousness of
Japanese people.


On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Mark D. Roberts <
mroberts37 at mail-central.com> wrote:

> For anybody planning to see "Yasukuni" soon at Cin? 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 d?fil? 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
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