[KineJapan] 'Eternnal Zero' wins audience prize at Udine

[Mark Roberts]

Roger,

I saw the non-porridge-smeared theatrical version of Eien no zero, and didn't notice any overt Italian angle (that would be the meeting with Caproni in Kaze tachinu, I suppose). Having yet to attend Udine, I can't speak to the festival audience there and why they might have given the prize to this film, but it has been somewhat puzzling to me how Eien no zero managed to become the largest-grossing Japanese film in a decade, remaining at the top of the domestic box office for two months.

It is a competent production, yes, but at some level there's nothing terribly remarkable about the film. Cinematically, it's nothing special: polished, but like a TV dorama with a very big budget. A balance is struck between the depiction of human relationships and the spectacle of the war sequences. Yes, it's got some young heart-throb talent (e.g., Okada Jun'ichi) and is very sentimental in tone, but I suspect it must resonate at other levels too.

Without saying too much about the plot, Eien no zero is very self-consciously a kind of "alternate history" of the tokkotai. It sets out a puzzle, at face value about the characters' family history — the "real" grandfather that nobody talks about was a kamikaze pilot — but of course this is also a puzzle about Japanese history. The mystery around the pilot Miyabe is that he wanted to survive the war, and nobody quite grasps this seeming contradiction. How could a kamikaze pilot be so attached to life and yet ultimately willing to die? This question drives the story forward. The perspective of the tokkotai is shown, and clearly distinguished from that of the military command. The capabilities of the Zero aircraft are explained (this for the audience to have "historical context" but evidently also to feel retroactively proud of the technological achievement). Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Rabaul are shown, as are the pilots on the aircraft carrier Akagi.

Through both these sequences and the contemporary parts of the film, the objections to the kamikaze in the popular memory are offered as story points, which the alternative history then "explains". The pilots are shown to be young men who are unwittingly trained for suicide missions, but then asked to "volunteer" for the actual duty. They are explicitly distinguished from "terrorists" (because they target warships, not civilians), and with this, they are likewise distinguished from "brainwashed nationalists". I haven't read any reviews of the film or attempts to decode the crypto-nationalism of Eien no zero, though at moments it's pretty transparent. The film itself even acknowledges an obvious reading: when the young Kentaro — a NEET who has failed repeatedly at the bar exam — becomes interested in the family history and pontificates for a "correct" understanding of the tokkotai, one of the minor characters snarks that he has turned to Japanese history to get through a personal identity crisis. In this fashion, the film recuperates a critique of neo-nationalism, even putting it directly into the film's dialog.

The explanation that is given for Miyabe's will to survive the war — and one of the big claims of the film — is bound up with the idea that love of family is ultimately more important than loyalty to the kokutai. This is the deeper significance of "eien", which is thus an idea about love, a love that continues beyond death. I suspect this also in part explains the domestic success of the film, because it directly addresses women and mothers in the audience (in addition to NEETs, of course). It might sound a bit flip to say this is an anti-war war film for oba-sans, but perhaps not entirely wrong. 

In February of this year, Hyakuta Naoki, the author of the gensaku, provoked some outrage by publicly denying the Nanjing Massacre, even saying that it was a fabrication to avert attention from American war crimes. This, after he had been hand-picked by PM Abe Shinzo for the board of governors at NHK. Speaking to journalists, he claimed: “I have the freedom of ideology and beliefs,” to explain that his personal opinions about the history of the war do not pose a conflict of interest with his responsibilities to the Broadcast law while serving at NHK, which I suppose is kind of like Abe himself saying that his personal choice to pay tribute at Yasukuni does not pose any conflict with his responsibilities as PM.

Upshot: I am still somewhat puzzled by the success of this film.

M.

On May 6, 2014, at 2:30 AM, Roger Macy wrote:

> Dear KineJapaners,
> I see that 'The Eternal Zero' won the audience prize at Udine this year.
> http://www.fareastfilm.com/EasyNe2/LYT.aspx?Code=FEFJ&IDLYT=13308&ST=SQL&SQL=ID_Documento=4397
> I can't add more as it was the only Japanese film there I didn't see.  That wasn't my deliberate choice - it clashed against a round table for  'Cinema Impact' and then, went I went to view it in the media room, the digital screener from Toho looked as if it was smeared with porridge (it was only Toho's that were like that).  I couldn't see the point in seeing an action spectacular under such conditions.  But, in retrospect, I would have liked to understand if there was an Italian dimension to this war-film's reception.
> Roger
> 
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