Tag: Yasuyuki Maekawa

Seppuku: The Sun Goes Down (陽が落ちる, Yuji Kakizaki, 2024)

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What’s more absurd, that the shogun orders a man to take his own life in atonement for accidentally damaging his favourite bow or that the samurai actually does it without protest? There is something a little uncomfortable about Yuji Kakizaki’s Seppuku: The Sun Goes Down (陽が落ちる, Yo ga Ochiru) as it, unlike many similarly themed samurai dramas, seems to find only nobility in such a senseless death rather than outrage against a word in which a man must die for a careless and inconsequential mistake.

Indeed, the worst outcome Kyuzo envisages is that he’s going to get the sack from his job as a castle guard and his family will suffer both a reputational loss and financial hardship because of it. His wife, Yoshino, is quite prepared for the latter, stating only that they will soon adjust to living more simply. No one seems to be thinking that this is anything other than a minor incident that will soon blow over, which is why it comes as such a shock to Kyuzo’s best friend Denbei that his friend has been ordered to commit seppuku and that he must be the man to deliver the message the next morning. Kyuzo is currently under house arrest, which means that were Denbei to visit him before that, he too would be committing an offence and could end up suffering the same fate. The best thing he can do, as his wife advises, is to go there and sing a song outside conveying the difficult news through poetry while maintaining plausible deniability. 

Alternate forms of communication become a kind of theme with Yoshino deciding to fulfil the dreams of her loyal maid, Shige, by teaching her to read and write explaining that one may say in a letter that which they otherwise could not. Shige is from a peasant farming family and on her return to them after Yoshino decides to dismiss her so that she won’t be caught up in it when they deliver her husband’s death warrant which could, in fact, order everyone in the house to die, Shige’s family remark that they can’t understand these “cruel” samurai who are expected to surrender their lives over something so trivial. Yet Shige’s father who is currently bedridden with illness instructs her to go back knowing that it may mean her death because her duty is serve the family she was indebted to right until the very end. Shige even gives her father the comb and money Yoshino had given her to open a restaurant to pay for medical treatment but he won’t take it until she’s fulfilled her duty which rather undercuts any criticism of the samurai code.

Similarly, Yoshino struggles with the decision of whether to live on or take her own life alongside her husband. Her options are now few. She must either return to her birth family, if they agree to take her, or become a Buddhist nun, while their 10-year-old son Komanosuke would ordinarily be sent to his father’s relatives or placed into a temple as a monk. Denbei and his wife’s offer to adopt Komanosuke in the absence of an heir to their clan provides a neat solution, but leaves Yoshino’s fate in the balance now separated from both her son and husband. Only at the very end in her empty house does her resolve break as she cries out against the injustice and absurdity of it all.

Kyuzo, meanwhile, is expected to make his peace with his death having been given prior warning by Denbei and allowed to enjoy one last night with his family. He says that what he fears is “nothingness”, but as Yoshino tells him even if he were to reject his fate by running away he would endure a life of fear and misery on the run before he was caught and executed as a coward and a traitor. Yet what the film finds in his stoicism that takes on an uncomfortably elegiac quality that he is basically doing the right thing by submitting himself to the samurai code as cruel and arbitrary as it might seem to be with its overly enthusiastic magistrate who seems to relish the prospect of seeing Kyzuo’s head on a tray. He first gives Denbei the opportunity to leave out of consideration of their friendship knowing that he cannot accept the offer without incriminating himself, and then insists he be Kyuzo’s second as if to double down on the sadistic cruelty of ending a man’s life to demonstrate a capricious shogun’s power. Dramatising the submission of these people who seem to be good and kind yet caught in this absurd web of honour and power with sadness rather than anger leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth in its implication that obedience to such an absurd social code constitutes nobility rather than foolishness and that the situation is merely a misfortune that must be quietly endured rather than an outrageous injustice that no one should defend.

Seppuku: The Sun Goes Down screened as part of this year’s Toronto Japanese Film Festival.

Fukushima 50 (フクシマ50, Setsuro Wakamatsu, 2020)

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The “Fukushima 50” (フクシマ50), as the film points out, was a term coined by the international media to refer to the men and women who stayed behind to deal with the unfolding nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Loosely inspired by Ryusho Kadota’s non-fiction book On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi which featured extensive interviews with those connected to the incident, Setsuro Wakamatsu’s high production value film adaptation arrived to mark the ninth anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami which occurred on 11th March, 2011 and closes with a poignant callback to the plant’s role in Japan’s post-war reconstruction as the nation once again prepares to host the (now postponed) Olympics with a torch relay beginning at Fukushima as a beacon of hope as the country continues to rebuild in the wake of the disaster. 

Though inspired by real events Wakamatsu’s dramatisation is heavily fictionalised and while surprisingly frank for a mainstream film in its criticism of the official reaction to the disaster, is also quietly nationalistic while doing its best to pay tribute to the selfless sacrifice of the plant workers who stayed behind to do what they could many of whom had little expectation of surviving. Chief among them would be Izaki (Koichi Sato), an imperfect family man and veteran section chief, and the plant’s superintendent Yoshida (Ken Watanabe) who are both local men and old friends. Local, it seems, is later key with multiple appeals to the furusato spirit as each is at pains to point out that they stay not only to prevent a catastrophic meltdown that would leave most of central Honshu including Tokyo uninhabitable, but because they feel a greater duty to protect their hometown and the people in it. 

Meanwhile, they find themselves burdened rather than assisted by official support as government bodies’ political decision making undermines their attempts to avert disaster while the boardroom of TEPCO who operate the plant reacts with business concerns in mind. A few hours in the prime minister (Shiro Sano) decides to make a visit, in political terms he can’t not national leaders who don’t visit sites of crisis are never forgiven, but his presence actively hinders the recovery efforts. Referred to only as the PM, Wakamatsu’s film presents the man leading the nation as an ignorant bully overly obsessed with his personal image. He has little understanding of nuclear matters or the implications of the disaster, refuses to abide by the regular safety procedures required at the plant, and mostly governs through shouting. Beginning to lose his temper, Yoshida does his best to remain calm but resents the constant interference from those sitting in their offices far away from immediate danger while he does his best to contend with the increasingly adverse conditions on the ground, mindful of his responsibilities firstly to his employees and secondly to those living in the immediate vicinity of the plant who will be most at risk when measures taken to prevent meltdown will lead to an inevitable radiation leak. 

Yoshida’s hero moment comes when he ignores a direct order from the government to stop using seawater to cool the reactors, knowing that he has no other remaining options. Meanwhile, the government refuse offers of help from the Americans, who eventually make a strangely heroic arrival with Operation Tomodachi, discussing plans to move their families to safety while their commander reflects on his post-war childhood on a military base near the site of the nuclear plant. Japan’s SDF also gets an especial nod, granted permission to leave by Yoshida who is beginning to think he’s running out of time but vowing to stay and do their duty in protecting civilians in need. 

In essence, the drama lies in how they coped rather than the various ways in which they didn’t. The conclusion is that the existence of the plant was in itself hubristic, they are paying the price for “underestimating the power of nature” in failing to calculate that such a devastating tsunami was possible. They thought they were safe, but they weren’t. Perhaps uncomfortably, Wakamatsu mimics the imagery of the atomic bomb to imagine a nuclear fallout in Tokyo, harking back to ironic signage which simultaneously declares that the energy of the future is atomic while the plant workers reflect on the sense of wonder they felt as young people blinded by science back in the more hopeful ‘70s as the nation pushed its way towards economic prosperity. Frank for a mainstream film but then again perhaps not frank enough, Fukushima 50 is both an urgent anti-nuclear plea and an earnest thank you letter to those who stayed when all looked hopeless, suggesting that if the sakura still bloom in Fukushima it is because of the sacrifices they made.

Fukushima 50 is available to stream in the US until July 30 as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Big Bee (天空の蜂, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2015)

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Blockbuster cinema wades into the anti-nuclear debate in a characteristically ambivalent take from prolific author Keigo Higashino adapted from his 1995 novel. Brought to the screen by blockbuster master Yukihiko Tsutsumi, The Big Bee (天空の蜂, Tenku no Hachi) is less wedded to its anti-nuclear message than it might at first seem, eventually sliding into a more comfortable tale of failed fathers redeemed with a potentially ambiguous coda that perhaps undercuts much of what has gone before . 

The main action takes place on 8th August, 1995 which falls between the 50th anniversaries of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and is also a few months after the devastating earthquake in Kobe. Engineer Yuhara (Yosuke Eguchi) is about to unveil the “Big Bee”, Japan’s largest ever helicopter built with state of the art technology. He’s brought along his wife and son, but it’s clear there is discord in the family and neither of them are very impressed that the security guard didn’t even seem to know who he was so perhaps he’s not such a big shot after all. While his wife Atsuko (Kei Ishibashi) takes their son Takahiko (Shota Taguchi) and another boy to get a drink from the vending machine, Yuhara talks things over with a colleague and reveals that his workaholic lifestyle has destroyed his family life. He’s about to be divorced and doesn’t seem particularly cut up about it. Asked what’s going to happen to Takahiko, Yuhara cooly explains that it’s best he stays with his mum because he isn’t capable of being a good father to him. Unfortunately, Takahiko overhears him say that he’s essentially planning to abandon him and runs off to explore on his own, eventually sneaking aboard the helicopter which is then hijacked by a mysterious villain via remote control who flies it over a nuclear power plant and gives the Japanese government the eight hours before the fuel runs out to agree to shut down all the nuclear power plants in Japan. 

Yuhara’s failure as a father is immediately brought home to him when his son manages to throw the other boy, who climbed in with him but got injured, to safety, but doesn’t trust his dad enough to jump himself after hearing him say he was going to abandon him to his mother. Yuhara, meanwhile, was able to jump and grab the ramp of the helicopter but not to climb up and reach his son. He has to accept that his failure as a father and in consequence as a man is complete and total. His quest to save Takahiko is also a quest to redeem himself in the eyes of his society and avoid being branded as a man who sacrificed his family for a career and was finally unable to protect them.

Yet, at the present time, he’s also trying to save a nation while in the place of a father. To his mind, he built the Big Bee as a rescue craft, but its usage is most obviously military. He and his former colleague Mishima (Masahiro Motoki) see themselves as neutral engineers interested in technology but not particularly in its application. The government is reluctant to shut the plants down not only because cutting the power is extremely inconvenient and damaging to the economy, but because they do not wish to reopen the nuclear debate and risk the general populace realising that nuclear power is not entirely “safe”. Of course, this has extreme resonance in light of the Fukushima disaster, the government wilfully putting lives at risk in order to safeguard its own ends in refusing to issue an evacuation order for a potential disaster area covering all of the nation’s major cities right across the centre of the Japanese mainland.

This cavalier approach to human life extends to those working in the plants. We’re quickly introduced to a middle-aged woman whose son died of leukaemia she believes caused by lax safety procedures while the prime suspect is a friend of his (Go Ayano) who may also be suffering from a terminal illness caused by exposure to radiation after working as a cleaner at the power station. He vows revenge on a society which has rendered him “disposable”, thrown away like used tissue and left to fend for himself only because he was born into socio-economic circumstances which left him with no other choice than to take a “dangerous” job for employers that failed to protect him in much the same way Yuhara has failed to protect his son. 

The farmers in the town where the plant has become the major source of employment complain that no one wanted it but everyone needed the money. One leans into the mild message that perhaps we take our electric lives for granted, plugging in our toothbrushes without really thinking of the costs incurred in how we generate our power. Hotels dim their lights and switch off elevators while guests complain of the heat in the absence of aircon, but didn’t we manage OK before the power grid? Perhaps so, but our lives have changed. It might be as well to think again if those changes are really as good for us as we think they are, but you can’t turn back the clock. 

Not even the villain really wants the clock turning back, just better accountability and proper governance that puts the lives of citizens ahead of economic gain. Then again, a lot of this is personal, an act of self harm rebranded as revenge taken in atonement for the failures of a father. In this respect Yuhara may redeem himself, but there’s a note of discomfort in the jump to 2011 and the Fukushima disaster which doesn’t so much shout “I told you so” as over rely on the heroic efforts of the Self Defence Force as they battle a disaster which the powers that be from the government to the power company have failed to prevent. Yuhara wonders if the country is worth dying for and is comforted only in a trick he taught his son to calm his anxiety in the wake of the Kobe earthquake, tapping out “I am here” in morse code as an affirmation of survival which might also serve to say the work goes on even while “fathers” continue to fail in their responsibilities. 

Hong Kong release trailer (English subtitles)