Film: On Paper Wings

Director: Ilana Sol
Runtime: 67 min.

I saw this film last night as part of the Northwest Film Center’s 35th Northwest Film & Video Festival

It’s a documentary about the only World War II casualties to occur on the continental U.S.: in 1945, a Japanese balloon bomb killed five children and their pregnant Sunday school teacher outside of the small town of Bly, Oregon.

It’s something I’d heard about but had filed away in my mind under “World War II trivia,” a mere footnote in a large-scale, global war.

On Paper Wings packs a lot in its relatively short running time, bringing a real, human story into this “minor” incident. It includes extensive interviews: with the women that made these balloon bombs as schoolgirls who at the time did not even think to question their patriotic duty, with the siblings and neighbors of the six people killed by one of their creations, and with the Japanese-American man — interned in Tule Lake during the war — who in 1996 brought them together.

At one point in the film, one of the Japanese women says that because she always thought of the Japanese as victims, she did not feel anything for those six Americans that died in Oregon — until her Japanese-American friend, now a professor in Michigan, wrote her the names and ages of the people that were killed.

I believe this film has that purpose, of telling us why we should care, and illustrating through a story of two small towns the broader implications of war…and peace.

This film is by a local filmmaker and is not in wide release, but go to her website for more information and screening dates.

Film: 人間の條件 (The Human Condition), Part 1

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
First Released: 1959
Runtime: 208 min.

I went to see this film at the Northwest Film Center on Friday night.

Set during World War II, Tatsuya Nakadai plays Kaji, a “bleeding heart” who, ironically, accepts a job as the supervisor for a large group of Chinese prisoners forced into hard labor at a Manchurian mine. As he works to better the conditions of the laborers and actually treats them as human beings, he faces both distrust from the very Chinese people he’s trying to help (“Japanese devil!” they shout), and harsh repercussions from his superiors at the mining company and from the ever-menacing kempeitai (the military police at the time).

Audiences who may not be accustomed to “foreign” films need not worry much. Despite the heavy themes and historical/geographical context, the film is quite accessible and will seem familiar to anyone that watches old Hollywood films (the sweeping, dramatic music particularly reminded me of classic Hollywood epics). I was watching the movie thinking the main character could be Jimmy Stewart, and the New York Times did me one better by comparing him to Gregory Peck.

Either way, Kaji is a somewhat unwitting yet tireless hero, fighting from within the system against a war-driven, ethnocentric Japan. The things he fights for feel timelessly relevant: that the ends do not necessarily justify the means, that we should not dehumanize even our war enemies, and thus we must not lose our humanity.

Kaji is most flawed when it comes to his relationship with his wife, Michiko (Michiyo Aratama). Believing that she would not understand and wanting to shield her from the horrors of his work, Kaji through most of the film stays stubbornly distant. They reconcile their differences at the end of the film, but now Kaji is to be drafted into war (under suspicious circumstances).

Part 2 screens at the Northwest Film Center on September 27th and 28th, and Part 3 screens on the 27th and 29th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to Part 2 (1959, 181 min.) and probably won’t make it to Part 3 (1961, 190 min.) (depending on whether I decide I can sacrifice sleep on a Monday night).

Go to the Janus Films website to check for screenings in other parts of the country.