Pals, Peril, and Playing God

 There exists unanimous agreement among film historians that 1939 was ‘the greatest in Hollywood film history’. The watershed year witnessed the release of such landmark films as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Of Mice and Men, Dark Victory, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, and Ninotchka. What made 1939 all the more fascinating was that these films encompassed a wide array of genres—historical romance (Gone with the Wind), musical (The Wizard of Oz), western (Stagecoach), literary adaptation (Wuthering Heights), drama (Of Mice and Men), social commentary (Mr Smith goes to Washington), tragedy (Dark Victory), and comedy (Ninotchka).

In the same vein, though far less celebrated, 1988 was an astounding year for the Japanese film industry. However, there is one small difference. The three Japanese films released that year that went on to make a mark worldwide all belonged to the same broad genre—animation, or anime (Japanimation) to be precise, which is the nomenclature for the peculiar animation style originating in Japan. Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, an animated drama, is widely known as one of the most powerful and influential anti-war films ever made; the maestro Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro is a top-drawer example of animated adventure-fantasy; while Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira has the envious reputation of having introduced anime to the West.

Akira is a two-hour-long film, condensed from a six-volume, 2,182-page long manga (cartoons, comic books, and animated films that adhere to a typical Japanese style of drawing), created by Otomo himself that was published in a serialised form from 1982 to 1990. When it was first released in the US and Europe in the 1990s, Akira changed the way Westerners—who were till then fed only on a Disney diet—view animation forever (in one particular scene of the film there is a building, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Walt Disney logo). Even today, almost 25 years after it crept on to celluloid, Akira continues to astound its audience in the same manner it stumped the American distributors on its release, who had never seen an animation film like it before. Similarly, audiences to this day are confounded when they try to pigeonhole Akira into a specific sub-genre. But all these differences aside, if there is consensus on a film as path-breaking as Akira, which paved the way for renowned anime directors like Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika), Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) and Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll), it is that Akira is prescient and prophetic.

As the film begins with a bird’s eye view of Tokyo, we learn that on 16 July 1988 (which, incidentally, happened to be the exact date when Akira was first screened in Japan), after a nuclear explosion ripped through the city, Third World War had broken out. The screen immediately turns red and the overhead view of the topographical features of the city take on an eerie resemblance to blood-soaked veins and arteries.

This pre-title card scene encapsulates the entire philosophy of the film. The perspective from above is akin to god’s point-of-view. But what followed was not an act of creation but a deed of destruction. It is as if our relentless pursuit to play god runs through our veins and inevitably ends in blood being spilled.

Thirty-one years later, in 2019, a lot of blood is being spilled on the roads of Neo-Tokyo—the city that arose from the ashes. Tokyo, or the Old City, as it is known, is now nothing but a crater that stares continuously like an unblinking eye. The physical destruction of the Old City is mirrored in the disruption of the moral fabric of the new one. Here, terrorism is rampant, unemployment is on the rise, and nationwide riots between the aggrieved populace and the police are commonplace. In such a dystopian future, where corrupt politicians rule the roost, the streets and highways provide the backdrop for a different kind of power struggle—that between rival biker gangs like the Capsules and the Clowns.

Shôtarô Kaneda is the leader of the Capsules. His best friend and companion since childhood is Tetsuo Shima. Ever since they met each other at a shelter, Kaneda has treated Tetsuo more as a brother than a friend. This protective nature has led Tetsuo to bear a thinly veiled grudge towards Kaneda, who has made a habit of coming to his rescue every time. But one day, during a high-speed bike chase, Tetsuo meets with an accident, and for the first time Kaneda fails to offer his helping hand. Instead, the military steps in and carries the wounded Tetsuo away.

What begins as Kaneda’s attempt to rescue his companion soon turns into a perilous journey that will involve a terrorist group; a trio of wrinkle-faced, psychic kids called Espers; the hard-as-nails Colonel Shikishima; the scientist Dr Onishi; and above all, the shrouded-in-mystery military experiment named Akira.

Man-made destructions and their aftermath are a leit motif in manga. It is a common device to tap into the cultural consciousness of Japan. Against this background that portrays man not as a higher power but akin to an amoeba that devours everything in its path, Akira posits the pros and cons of a psycho-spiritual awakening at two levels—man as an individual and as a species.

Otomo’s pessimism towards the so-called ‘evolution’ of man is apparent in the first scene of Akira itself, when in one singular motion an entire city gets wiped out. This is nothing but a depiction of an ungodly act that arises from harnessing god-like power. While humanity’s relentless pursuit has always been to control such power, Otomo shows that there comes a time when the power starts controlling us, instead.

Drawing upon the basic philosophy that is preached by religions as varied as Buddhism and Sufism—that of the innate relation between the creator and the created—Akira’s anime might look slightly dated today, but the secret of its longevity lies in its message that transcend time: ‘There’s ought to be a future that we can choose for ourselves. It’s up to us to find it’.

Learning Life’s Lesson

As the 13-year old-students of an unnamed Japanese junior-high school get ready for the bell to ring and announce the end of term, storm clouds are gathering outside, foretelling an impending doom. When their teacher Yuko Moriguchi (Takako Matsu) starts addressing them, the boisterous, rowdy, and unruly bunch is seen hardly paying any attention to her words—some of them are sleepy, some are busy texting on ubiquitous cell phones, some generally spaced out, while others are obviously bored and disinterested in what their teacher has to say.

As oblivious they are to the monotonous monologue of their teacher, it seems Moriguchi is equally unmindful of the cacophony around her, as she starts her address that begins innocuously enough, but gradually builds up to a terrifying conclusion.

Like the students, we, the viewer, too, are initially unaware of exactly where she is going with her monologue as it sifts through apparently unrelated topics, while the camera snakes through students, benches, and the nooks and crannies of the classroom. But like the thunderheads gathering outside, as time passes by, her words take on a more and more ominous shade; and similar to the students in the class, we, too, find our curiosity piqued and attention captured. After all, it is unlike any farewell speech ever delivered by a teacher, who has just resigned from her post and addressing her class the last time.

By the time Moriguchi’s half-hour-long monologue ends, the seemingly disparate aspects of her speech fall in place like an elaborately crafted jigsaw, threading together the answers to the following questions: Why was she referring to Masayoshi Sakuramiya, well-known for his brilliant book, who had travelled the world before becoming a passionate teacher, and was diagnosed with a terminal illness just a month ago? What was the significance of Moriguchi insisting that anytime one of her students asks for her after school hours, she would invariably send a male teacher, instead? Why was she speaking about the health checkups once the next term begins, while handing out cartons of milk to the entire class, if she would be gone by that time, anyway? What did she mean by saying that the death of her four-year-old daughter Manami was not an accident, as the ensuing police investigation had revealed, when she was found floating on the swimming pool inside the school? And who are the two boys of the very class she was addressing, who, she says, had in fact murdered Manami in cold blood? Most importantly, what is it exactly she wants with those two boys?

The first half-an-hour of Tetsuya Nakashima’s Kokuhaku aka Confessions (2010) has more twists, turns, and surprises than most films manage to fit in into their entire runtime. And after such a breathless start, one would expect the film to lose its momentum thereon. But here, too, Nakashima’s film, based on a bestselling novel by Kanae Minato, proves us wrong. Like a clock that we see on screen a number of times, the film meticulously surges ahead, keeping us wondering with every ticking moment what Moriguchi’s painstakingly crafted plan for revenge has in store for the two implicated individuals—the athletics aficionado Naoki Shimamura (Kaoru Fujiwara) and the electronics prodigy Shuuya Watanabe (Yukito Nishii).

Moriguchi, as we come to learn, is more than just an avenging angel. Her intention is to make the two perpetrators realise the severity of the crime she believes they have committed, and make them come to terms with the importance of life itself.

Similarly, the film is not merely a revenge drama. It is a critique of the Japanese legal system, specifically, Article 41 of the Penal Code, which stipulates that those under 14 years of age are not liable for the crimes they commit, and hence, cannot be punished as a result; a treatise on the desire youngsters have to be recognised; a commentary on how most parents are completely ignorant of how to reach out to their kids; a condemnation of how majority of parents impose their own dreams on their children, unaware of the detrimental effect it can have on those young minds; a denunciation of how gadgets, while being designed to keep them connected have actually succeeded in alienating the young generation from their peers; and an impeachment of how impressionable young minds are always in the quest for an idol to emulate, and the extent to which that blind faith can be exploited.

Intricately structured akin to the novel it is based on—divided into five confessions—Kokuhaku is a frightening depiction of teenage group dynamics, peer pressure, and the angst of adolescence. It is, indeed rare to come across a film where the audience finds it difficult to take sides with any of the characters on screen, simply because each one of them is irredeemable. It is with immense gusto that Nakashima has pulled this one off. His mastery of the craft is evident in the way he has used the red-and-white milk cartons as harbingers of a horrific plot point; the introduction of fish-eye lenses to invoke the idea that there is more to what is being viewed than what the normal eye can see; a cleaver chopping off an electronic toy resulting in a splatter of its mechanical body parts like blood spurting out of a human body being butchered; the uneasy screech of the chalk on the board as Moriguchi writes ‘life’ on it; Moriguchi opening a window, while allowing her class to know a particular secret in her life and then shutting it as soon as she has finished relating it, as well as Nakashima’s poignant portrayal of the attention-craving, loneliness, and rejection that adolescents find so difficult to cope with.

During her address, Moriguchi had revealed that as a teacher, she chose to ‘do my best to place myself on the same level as the students’. In her quest to avenge her daughter’s death, not only did she stay true to her word, but also meted out a lesson that would last a lifetime and scar the two perpetrators forever.

Japan’s official selection in the Best Foreign Film category at the 83^rd Annual Academy Awards, it is quite apparent why this searing tale of adolescent anomie did not make it to the top five. The ease with which Japan tackles the harsh reality of life, be it on screen or off it, is conspicuous by its absence in mainstream Hollywood. And having an ambiguous conclusion to a situation that Hollywood chooses to forsake rather than face did not help the film’s cause, either.

This is one of the many life’s lessons that the American film industry, which is still in its puberty when it comes to confronting the cruel side of growing up is concerned, needs to learn, fast.