One of the most striking and memorable scenes in Barefoot Gen is the scene that portrays the bombing of Hiroshima. The sequence features various views of pain and torture caused to the people of Hiroshima by the bombing, such as a young girl holding a red balloon, a mother with a young child, and an old man vaporized by the extreme heat of the blast (Images 1, 2, 3, and 4).
(Figure 1)
(Figure 2)
(Figure 3)
(Figure 4)
The deaths of the young girl, soldier, old man, and mother and child represent not only the horrific deaths caused by the bombings, but also enunciate the disaster’s toll on civilians. Masaki’s decision to show the brutal deaths of these specific subjects intensify his political message. Rather than showing a images of massive amounts of citizens dying, which would be more realistic than showing only a handful of victims, Masaki highlights his political message that the bombs targeted and killed the citizens of Japan rather than the military. The fact that the backgrounds of the images during the bombing scene also change so drastically in color represents a sort of shift in reality from the artist’s perspective where the images may not necessarily correspond to what the atmosphere would have actually looked like during the bombing, but are rather meant to create a sort of mood in the audience toward the subject matter. Images 5 and 6, for example, show the city of Hiroshima during the initial detonation of the bomb. The colors of the buildings, sky, and general atmosphere in these images exist in order to convey more of a nightmarish view of the situation than to represent the reality of what the detonation actually would have looked like to a witness. Thus, one can see that although the bombing scene is fairly realistic in the ways it shows people dying; it also contains a large amount of political imagery from the perspective of the director which intends to illustrate the political and moral problems caused by the bombing.
(Figure 5)
(Figure 6)
Another visually striking and politically subverted aspect of the sequence portrays the Americans who flew the planes and dropped the bombs. The short sequence shows two American pilots, clearly drawn differently than the Japanese characters and meant to appear foreign to the viewer (Images 7 and 8), flying in the Enola Gay and speaking military jargon to each other while eventually pushing the button that drops the bomb. The images of the Americans are significant because they politically characterize the enemy, the United States, as essentially the “other” of Japan. The Americans clearly contrast the Japanese in terms of the ways they are represented: the ways the Americans are drawn are fundamentally very differently, they speak English (with Japanese subtitles), their eyes are never shown, and they move differently than the more traditionally “anime” Japanese characters. The “otherness” of the American soldiers can be interpreted as a vilifying of intervention in Japan from outside forces. The differences in characteristics between the Americans and the Japanese serve as a way for Masaki to clearly portray Japan’s enemy in the movie, but also to reinforce Japan’s traditional nationalistic sense of identity. The sharp difference between Japan and America in this sense later leads to the film’s departing images of Japanese nationalism and solidarity against foreign influence, which I will discuss later.
(Figure 7)
(Figure 8)
Clearly the events of the bombing scene, the way it is animated with constant shift in perspective, and the distortions of color and sound are meant to emphasize the director’s political message to the audience. The colors change drastically in a way that can only be described as hellish in order for Masaki to represent the true gravity of the events through animated drawings. The scene is so graphic that it is hard to watch and not particularly enjoyable or pleasant, but also impossible to look away. The final image in the scene is perhaps the most intriguing image of all because it seems to be a color photo of the actual Hiroshima bombing (Image 9).
(Figure 9)
In contrast to the hand-drawn images present throughout the rest of the film, the use of the actual photograph (the only photograph in the film) to end the scene is very peculiar and can only further represent the difference between Masaki’s message through the drawings and the actual reality of the situation. Thus, the use of the photo after the artistic images of death and destruction serves to separate the events and images of the film from reality, while still implying that the bombing was a huge disaster. In Jeff Adam’s article, “The pedagogy of the image text: Nakazawa, Sebald, and Spiegelman recount social traumas,” Adams discusses the use of photographic imagery to characterize traumatic events. The following passage is particularly interesting in terms of Barefoot Gen’s use of the Hiroshima bombing photo:
Photographs, drawn or otherwise, act to condition the receptivity of the reader to the possibility of a continuity with a traumatic history, existing outside of the narrative of past and present, and yet belonging to both of them…The signifier, the photograph itself, could be overlooked (invisible), or seen through to the referent – in this case straight through to the person, suggesting a direct link by virtue of the (perceived authenticity of the chemical impression, enabling its reception as a means of learning and knowing of past trauma. (Adams 41)
In Barefoot Gen, the use of the actual photograph of the Hiroshima bombing after the hand-drawn rendering of the scene embodies Adams’ idea of “a continuity with a traumatic history, existing outside of past and present, and yet belonging to both of them” (Adams 41). The photo surely exists outside of the film, which was produced in 1983, and serves as a means of connecting the reality portrayed in the photo with the political imagery conveyed in the film. The near 40 year gap between the events the film is based on and the production of the film itself leave a gap between the actual events and the meanings of Masaki’s interpretation nearly 40 years later. The destruction that can be seen in the photograph links the artist’s earlier portrayal of the events to the actual events of the bombing themselves, creating a gap between realism and artistic (and political) meaning. The ending of the film only further encourages speculation on the true political meaning of the film and why the film was produced such a long time after the events actually happened.
Like the bombing scene, the final two scenes of Barefoot Gen contain a large amount of political imagery intended to produce emotionally nationalistic feelings in the audience. Image 11 shows what maybe be the most important shot in the film in terms of Masaki’s overall message of the film. Although by this point in the plot, the family has lived through near complete death and destruction, it is clear that Gen and the rest of the family are very hopeful toward the future. Gen is portrayed as fulfilling a goal he had with his now deceased brother to float a hand-made boat (which, incidentally, has a Japanese flag on it) down the river. On one hand this shot could be interpreted as conveying Masaki’s political message of Japan’s need for solidarity and nationalism in order to overcome the events of destruction. This argument is plausible because the rest of the film points toward a bright future for Japan, as seen in Image 10 which deals with an inexplicable sprouting of the family’s wheat crop just one year after the bombing.
(Figure 10)
On the other hand, however Image 11 also appears to have some underlying darkness in terms of its message. The atmosphere of the characters, which was of extreme importance in the bombing scene, is essentially a nuclear wasteland. Although the field appears to be sprouting wheat in the previous scene (Image 10), Image 11 only shows dead trees and dust (as well as the contaminated river that kills many people earlier in the film.
(Figure 11)
The sun is also portrayed as setting throughout the final scene of the movie, which is not exactly conducive to Masaki’s idea of a seemingly bright Japanese future and the idea of Japan as “land of the rising sun.” The underlying darkness present in the final scene of the movie serves to send out two separate messages: in order to survive Japan must rely on its traditional form of solidarity and nationalism, but also that as a small and isolated country, modern Japan would be subjected to obeying the wills of larger and more powerful countries like the United States.
The inexplicable growth of wheat at on the family farm one year after the bombing raises yet another level of speculation and meaning. Obviously it is impossible that such a miracle could happen so quickly after a disaster as huge as the Hiroshima bombing, so the wheat scene and Gen’s flashback to his father can only serve as another layer of political meaning. Sheng-Mei Ma raises an interesting point about this scene in her article, “Three Views of the Rising Sun, Obliquely” when she states the following:
The never-ending search for food focuses on the staple of the Japanese diet, rice, against which is the Nakaoka icon of wheat, as if the cartoonist deliberately chooses an atypical Japanese food to embody the antiwar, dissenting spirit of the Nakaokas. The erstwhile un-Japanese sentiment comes to be embraced wholeheartedly in postwar Japan. (Ma 187).
Ma’s generalization of Gen’s family as “atypical Japanese” (187) resonates throughout the first half of the movie and can be seen when Gen’s father tells Gen, “This war can’t be right…but it’s only the cowards like me who dare say it. If there were only a few more like us. You know, sometimes it takes more courage not to fight than to fight, to not want to kill…when all around you are calling for blood. That’s real courage in my book” (Barefoot Gen). The characterization of the Nakaokas as dissidents of the government appears to make sense in terms of Masaki’s political message because of the fates of the parents. The father, who stands as the most outspoken critic of the war in the film, ultimately pays for his anti-nationalistic views by burning to death shortly after the bombing. Although the father’s beliefs may appear to be acceptable to the viewer, the fact that he is killed indicates a failed idealistic point of view. When Gen’s father appears again in the flashback and tells Gen (referring to wheat), “Its life begins in the coldest season of the year. The rain pounds it, the wind blows it…it’s crushed beneath people’s feet…but still the wheat spreads its roots and grows. It survives. Learn from it, boys” (Barefoot Gen), it can be seen as a sort of reprisal of the father’s idealism that is killed when he is killed. Although his message in the flashback is meant to encourage Gen to never give up on life, which could be interpreted as Masaki’s message on a more national level, the fact that the father is killed in such a brutal fashion suggests that his ideals of social dissent from government should not be followed by the public. Thus, the flashback differs from the original quote from the father because it endorses more of a national mantra of solidarity and nationalism than the message of dissent and individual alienation from pre-bombing society and the government.
The fact that Gen’s family represents a dissident view of the war and the Japanese government raises even more pertinent questions about Masaki’s message in the film. Although Gen’s father can be seen as a dissident through some of his remarks about the war, the seemingly loving and functional way the family is shown could suggest a separate level of “normality” in Japanese society before the nuclear attack, untrusting and cautious towards foreign wars and the policies of the government. While the idea of “normality” in this sense defined by dissidence is an interesting idea, everything about the film seeks to generalize the Nakaoka as being a political anomaly to the nationalistic society. The separation from the Nakaoaka family and the rest of society can be seen early on in the movie, when there is a parade for Japanese soldiers that chants the following:
Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! Because I swore to win bravely and left my hometown, how can I die without doing great deeds? Every time I hear the marching trumpet, my mind recalls the waves of your flags. Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! (Barefoot Gen)
This nationalistic chant by the large group of people is then undermined by Gen and his brother Shinji when they sing their own chant which goes “Don’t you hate the military? Metal bowls and metal chopsticks. I’m not Buddha. One meal a day is pathetic” (Barefoot Gen). This sequence, which is the first sequence of the film after the theme song, sets the difference between the traditional nationalistic values of Japan embodied through the parade in this case, and the more modern political views of the Nakaoaka family (through the director, Masaki) of dissidence to war and the government.
On a broader level, the wheat scene further elaborates another aspect of the film that deserves a little attention: the constant cycle of life, death, and regeneration. Ma explains the motif in the following passage:
The motif of death and rebirth repeats itself in the manner of a fugue from the wheat imagery to numerous “reincarnations.” Gen and his mother Kimie survive the blast purely by chance, protected by a concrete wall and in the attic. Having witnessed three members of her family burned to death, Kimie gives birth to Tomoko amid the rubble, yet Tomoko dies in her infancy due to either malnutrition or the radiation-caused cancer. Gen also rescues [Gen’s brother’s] lookalike, Ryuta…Regeneration graces Gen himself…when he finds a fuzz covering his bald head… This gallery of monstrocities…illustrates Gen’s picaresque journey through hell. These supporting characters around Gen emerge and vanish in the narrative without much logic, akin to the chaos in Hiroshima. (Ma 186)
The seemingly unrelenting tragedies that follow Gen throughout the second half of the film always seem to be resolved by a sort of rebirth. One example is the appearance of Ryuta, who appears shortly after Gen’s father, sister, and brother are killed in a fire shortly after the bombing. Ryuta perfectly resembles Gen’s dead brother Shinji in virtually every way. This “rebirth” of Shenji not only represents the sort of hopefulness of life illustrated in the final scene of the film, but it also further emphasizes the subverted message of hopelessly uncontrolled sovereignty. Like the final scene of the film, which at the same time represents hopefulness toward the future and helplessness to the outside world, Shenji essentially exists amidst both the hopeless and hopeful ascepts of Masaki’s message.
Researching the film and, more generally, postwar Japan brings the argument that Barefoot Gen both endorses traditional Japanese nationalism and criticizes foreign involvement in Japan even more speculation. Harry Harootunian’s article “Japan’s Long Postwar” contains a few interesting ideas that are relevant to a discussion of postwar Japan. The following passage is particularly interesting:
As a mnemonic device for recall, the memory of living through the postwar, the nation in defeat, instead of the war itself, or indeed the vast complex history before the war, was coupled with the idea of culture to construct an endless present, more spatial than temporal, much like the commodity form that colonized Japanese life before the war as thoroughly as the U.S. Occupation. What I mean is that remembering the postwar in the 1990s worked to recall not the experience of wartime Japan, which the various discourses inspired by the Occupation and the enshrinement of Hiroshima effectively displaced, but rather the experience of a time when others, notably the Americans, prevented Japanese from actually forgetting their continuing status as a defeated nation. (Harootunian, 720)
Harootunian’s argument is relevant because it deals with one central question regarding the production of Barefoot Gen: why was it produced nearly 40 years after the actual bombing occurred? Through Harootunian’s argument it can be understood that Masaki directed the film from the perspective of someone who lived through the experience of postwar Japan. The view portrayal of the bombings, the use of the actual photo of the bombings, and the inexplicably hopefully ending of the film cannot help but be told from the perspective of a person looking back upon memories rather than reporting a witness’s testimony. The discrepancy in time between when the events occurred and when the film was actually produced indicate a political message influenced by a Japan that has long been controlled by foreign and U.S. influence.
One of the most important questions that can come out of this discussion is how does the film use the events of the past to comment upon modern Japan? Personally, I believe the evidence of both hopefulness toward the future and helplessness toward outside influence in the film set the stage for the Japan of 1983, the year Barefoot Gen was produced. At that time still controlled by U.S. interests, the Japan of 1983 was essentially the Japan that the film leaves us with: a rebuilding society centered on extreme cultural isolation, social unity, and the desire to be self-governing rather than controlled by foreign influences. Although Barefoot Gen may seem deceptively simple upon the first viewing, subsequent viewings reveal layer after layer of subversive political messages and imagery. While on one hand the film seems to clearly acknowledge the American enemy and the hopeful future of Japan, on the other hand it suggests an underlying message of Japan’s helplessness to outside influence and sovereignty. The fact that the film was produced nearly 40 years after the events it is based on only further causes us to question the message of the film and how it applies to modern Japanese society. The dual meanings of the film can only lead to the interpretation of the film as a truly indefinable, enigmatic piece of anime.
No comments:
Post a Comment