| Children of Hiroshima | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Kanji | 原爆の子 |
| Revised Hepburn | Gembaku no ko |
| Directed by | Kaneto Shindō |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Kōzaburō Yoshimura |
| Starring | Nobuko Otowa |
| Cinematography | Takeo Itō |
| Edited by | Zenju Imaizumi |
| Music by | Akira Ifukube |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 Minutes [1] [2] |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Children of Hiroshima (原爆の子, Gembaku no ko, lit. "Children of the Atomic Bomb") is a 1952 Japanese drama film directed by Kaneto Shindō. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. [3]
Takako Ishikawa (Nobuko Otowa) is a teacher on an island in the inland sea off the coast of post-war Hiroshima. During her summer holiday, she takes the ferry to her hometown Hiroshima to visit the graves of her parents and younger sister, who were killed in the Atomic bombing. She sees a beggar and recognises him as Iwakichi (Osamu Takizawa), a former servant of her parents, now burned on the face and partially blind. She follows him to his poor shack, where he is looked after by a woman living next door, and asks about his family. With his wife, his son and daughter-in-law dead, Iwakichi's only surviving relative is his grandson Tarō, who lives in an orphanage. Takako visits the orphanage and finds the children barely have enough to eat. She offers to take Iwakichi and his grandson back with her, but Iwakichi refuses, running away.
Takako goes on to visit Natsue Morikawa, a former colleague at the kindergarten where she used to teach, and now a midwife. Natsue has been rendered sterile as an aftereffect of the bomb, and is planning to adopt a child with her husband. Natsue and Takako visit the site of the kindergarten, which is now destroyed, and Takako decides to visit the students of the kindergarten.
The father of the first student she visits, Sanpei, has suddenly been taken ill from a radiation-related illness and dies just before she arrives. Another one of the students is terminally ill and dying in a church, where many people with bomb-related injuries are gathered.
After staying the night in Natsue's house, she then goes to visit another student, Heita. His sister (Miwa Satō), who has an injured leg, is just about to get married, and Takako dines with her. She talks to Heita's older brother Kōji (Jūkichi Uno) about the people who died or were injured in the war.
She returns to Iwakichi's house and asks him again to let her take Tarō back to the island. At first he refuses, but later his neighbour convinces him to let Takako take care of Tarō. However, Tarō still refuses to leave his grandfather. On the last evening before Takako's departure, Iwakichi invites Tarō for a meal, gives him new shoes he bought for him, and sends him to Takako with a letter. Then he sets his house on fire. He survives the fire but is badly burned and eventually dies. Tarō leaves Hiroshima together with Takako, carrying his grandfather's ashes.
The film was commissioned by the Japan Teachers Union and was based on first-person testimonies gathered by Japanese educator Arata Osada, collected in the 1951 book Children of the Atomic Bomb. [4] The end of the post-war occupation of Japan by American forces allowed the production of works addressing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski. [5]
The film was successful in Japan on its initial release and had its international premiere at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, but the Japan Teachers Union, which had commissioned the film, criticized its "outsider" view of the physical and personal devastation of the bombing and especially the lack of clear political and social criticism, concentrating instead on the stories of a few individuals. The union then commissioned another film, Hiroshima (released in 1953), by director Hideo Sekigawa, which was far more graphic in its depiction of the bombing's aftermath and far more critical of both American and Japanese leaders who had brought about the disaster. [5]
In 1959, film historian Donald Richie perceived a major weakness in the film, its "coupling of the most lifelike naturalism with truly excessive sentimentality", but emphasized that "it showed the aftermath of the bomb without any vicious polemic". [6]
Children of Hiroshima was met with positive reviews on its American debut in 2011. In a review of the film, where he also comments on its place in Kaneto Shindō's career, The New York Times critic A.O. Scott remarks: "Mr. Shindo combines austerity and sensuality to stirring, sometimes mesmerizing effect. The beauty of the compositions in Children of Hiroshima — the clarity of focus, the graceful balance within the frames — provides some relief from the grimness of his subject. […] He contemplates Japan’s wartime experience with regret, rather than indignation". [7]
In The Village Voice , J. Hoberman called it "a somber melodrama" which lacks in subtlety but has "the capacity to wound". [8] Film scholar Alexander Jacoby resumed, "it remains one of Shindo’s most moving films, and a testament to the anti-war spirit that took root in Japan after its defeat". [9]
The film holds a score of 86/100 on review aggregation site Metacritic. [10]
The film commemorates the a-bomb attack on Hiroshima and the tragedies that followed, which the U.S. forces censored during their occupation of Japan that ended months before the film’s release. [11] The film commemorates the hibakusha people and highlights how they were ostracized in Japanese society through characters who are refused work due to their visible injuries caused by the bombs and the radiation. [11] However, the film also promotes Japan’s sentiment of victimization through the tragedy of nuclear attacks. It leaves out the struggles of other Asian countries during the war and how Japan was also a victimizer. [12] There is a lack of a larger context of wartime Japan within the film as it depicts Japan as a calm and prosperous place before the bombs. The film displays the victimization of Japan in flashback scenes of the bombing, where children cry over their dead mother's bodies, representing a broken bond of life. [12] The film’s emphasis on the destruction that followed the bombing resonates with the anti-war and pro-democracy messages of several social interest groups, including the Japan Teachers Union. [13]
Kaneto Shindo was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include Children of Hiroshima, The Naked Island, Onibaba, Kuroneko and A Last Note. His screenplays were filmed by directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Kōzaburō Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Seijun Suzuki, and Tadashi Imai.
Barefoot Gen is a Japanese historical manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen Nakaoka lives with his family. After Hiroshima is destroyed by atomic bombing, Gen and other survivors are left to deal with the aftermath. It ran in several magazines, including Weekly Shōnen Jump, from 1973 to 1987. It was subsequently adapted into three live action film adaptations directed by Tengo Yamada, which were released between 1976 and 1980. Madhouse released two anime films, one in 1983 and one in 1986. In 2007, a live action television drama series adaptation aired in Japan on Fuji TV over two nights, August 10 and 11.
Hibakusha is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
Takashi Nagai was a Japanese Catholic physician specializing in radiology, an author, and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. His subsequent life of prayer and service earned him the affectionate title "saint of Urakami".
The Hiroshima Panels are a series of fifteen painted folding panels by the collaborative husband and wife artists Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi (fr) completed over a span of thirty-two years (1950–1982). The Panels depict the consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as other nuclear disasters of the 20th century. Each panel stands 1.8 metres x 7.2 metres.
Onibaba is a 1964 Japanese jidaigeki film written and directed by Kaneto Shindo. The film is set during a civil war in the fifteenth century. Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura play two women who kill soldiers to steal their possessions, and Kei Satō plays the man who ultimately comes between them.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director is a 1975 Japanese documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi. It was produced, written and directed by Kaneto Shindō.
The Children's Peace Monument is a monument for peace to commemorate Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This monument is located in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako Sasaki, a young girl, died of leukemia from radiation of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
Sadako Kurihara was a Japanese poet who lived in Hiroshima and survived the atomic bombing during World War II. She is best known for her poem Umashimenkana.
Nobuko Otowa was a Japanese actress who appeared in more than 100 films between 1950 and 1994.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese marine engineer and a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. Although at least 70 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.
Midori Naka was a Japanese stage actress of the Shingeki style. She initially survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, but died 18 days later. She was the first person in the world whose death was officially certified to be a result of radiation poisoning. Her notability helped publicize the adverse effects of exposure to radiation and encouraged more research on this area.
Atomic bomb literature is a literary genre in Japanese literature which comprises writings about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
By Player is a 2000 Japanese biographical film directed by Kaneto Shindo based on the life of actor Taiji Tonoyama.
Story of a Beloved Wife is a 1951 Japanese drama film written and directed by Kaneto Shindo. It was Shindo's debut film as a director. It is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko Otowa stars as the wife who supports him through his early struggles.
Mother is a 1963 Japanese drama film written and directed by Kaneto Shindō.
Keiko Sonoi was a Japanese actress, who was a member of the all-female musical-performing Takarazuka Revue during the 1930s and the 1940s, best known for her role as an officer's widow in the wartime film Muhōmatsu no isshō (1943), and for being part of the Sakura-tai or Cherry Blossom Unit of traveling shingeki play actors who died as a result of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
Hiroshima (ひろしま) is a 1953 Japanese docudrama film directed by Hideo Sekigawa about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its impact. It tells the story of a group of teachers, their students, and their families in the years after the bomb. In a flashback sequence, tens of thousands of extras from Hiroshima, many of them survivors, helped recreate the "hellscape" immediately following the bombing.
Sakura-tai Chiru is a 1988 Japanese documentary film and docudrama written and directed by Kaneto Shindō. Based on a nonfictional story by Hagie Ezu, it depicts the fate of the Sakura theatre troupe, whose members were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The House of Hands is a 1960 short story of the Atomic bomb literature genre by Japanese writer Mitsuharu Inoue. It depicts the fate of a group of young women, all survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who grew up as orphans on a small Nagasaki island whose inhabitants are descendants of Crypto-Christians.
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