Hiroshima/广岛 (2005)

What can we see from the history, or from wars? People keep saying they hate wars whilst nowadays wars are still going on and on led by the world's highest civilizations.

The narrator of the documentary Hiroshima (Paul Wilmshurst, 2005) is John Hurt, the narrator for Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005), the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) and The Elephant Man (1980), all of which also aim to question the issue of humanity. As usual, Hurt speaks in an neutral tone, leaving the spectators to reflect themselves.

The documentary is detailed and informative in a relatively realistic way. Besides the repetitive showcase of the thorough bombardment, two major parallel narratives are delivered with a tension of relation between American and Japanese: For the Americans, though not sure of potential damages of the atomic bomb, generals, scientists and soldiers were totally enraged by the Pearl Harbor Incident and mostly voted on the destructive decision; For the Japanese, the soldiers would rather commit harakiri than surrender in the name of samurai spirit, which in part accounts for the tragedy too.

The cross-cutting of the two narratives is quite heart-rending (at least for me) to see: on Hiroshima's land, innocent Japanese citizens live peacefully with their families and friends. It is early in the morning with a pure blue sky, not even a clue of cloud; then the scene jumps to that American aircraft are heading for the spot, about to drop the bomb (named Enola Gay) which will later turn Hiroshima into complete darkness and dust. One is constructive, the other is destructive. When the opposites are put together, the destructive impact is magnified even more. And then "BOOM", nothing left except radiation. The screen alternates between flashbacks of survivors and renditions of the memories. The survivors are interviewed and stop to cry several times. There are more emotionally powerful scenes I don't want to recall. Such as an American participant says he is not regretful for dropping the bomb; a Japanese survivor thinks the Americans drops the bomb merely to test the atomic effects on human in a disguise of a justice. The film ends with displays of different recorded words and viewpoints of the interviewees.

This documentary was showed in our Intensive Reading class. Thank Lori for letting us to know about this film and thus to look at that forbidden history in another perspective. Most of the time, the whole class was in silence, interrupted by occasional signs. Since in Chinese official history books, all about the atomic attacks on Japan is condensed into this short (originally in Chinese, translated by Chelsea):

"Americans dropped Hiroshima and Nagasaki each an atomic bomb. Then Japan committed an unconditional surrender in August 15th of 1945, which symbolizes the end of the World War II."(note by Chelsea: for European countries, the date is May 8th, 1945)

Here it's worth mentioning that I haven't a chance to read the Japanese history book's version of The Nanking Massacre. Does the event actually exist in Japanese version or get a similar treatment like The Culture Revolution in Chinese history book? For most of Chinese audience such as in our class, it is hard to react emotionally to Hiroshima (2005). Should we view Hiroshima's tragedy as cosmopolitans with a neutral perspective, or as Chinese patriots with ill-wishes for the fall of Japanese society? Speak of Japanese, they are really brilliant and perseverant in the post-war reconstructions which have made it possible for the ruins to reach today's prosperity. I adore and respect their working attitude, their culture reservation, their films, music, and creativity. But in China, this tragic part of history has been almost omitted and seldom a lesson for us to learn. Admiring anything related to Japan has become a sin, a symbol of treason to mainland China.

Peace Memorial in Park Hiroshima

Yes, every country is likely to weigh on its glories and tragedies caused by others while minimizes its own evil deeds in history records. Japanese soldiers robbed, burnt and raped Chinese (particularly Nanking people); and in cold blood, they used healthy Chinese in toxic gas experiments...These are too despicable and vile to forget. I believe Jewish were also in such great pain. But they treat the past as the passed as long as Germans admit what they did in the past. Due to the patriotic education of both countries and the failure of an authentic history book in both countries, there has been always a strong hatred among Chinese people against Japan. Thereby, the achievement of a mutual understanding between Chinese and Japanese remains a long distance to go.