軍旗はためく下に
“ひたすらな女心がいま暴く戦争と人間の真実! ニューギニアの密林でなにが起ったのか? 戦後二十数年…それが何故隠されたのか?”
あらすじ
昭和27年に戦没者遺族援護法が施行されるも、年金の請求を却下されたサキエは、不可解な死を遂げた夫・勝男の名誉のために証言を集めるうちに、むごい戦場の実態を知る。
“ひたすらな女心がいま暴く戦争と人間の真実! ニューギニアの密林でなにが起ったのか? 戦後二十数年…それが何故隠されたのか?”
昭和27年に戦没者遺族援護法が施行されるも、年金の請求を却下されたサキエは、不可解な死を遂げた夫・勝男の名誉のために証言を集めるうちに、むごい戦場の実態を知る。
No big-budget battle picture, this is a small, intimate chamber of moral horrors. Fukasaku spares neither his characters nor his viewers to deliver a personal anti-war film that indicts an entire social system. People are tested to the breaking point, without meaning or goal except to escape a miserable death. By the end of the story, you are invited to conclude that no one who felt the brunt of the war survived it; that in truth the Japanese nation did not survive. Those who stay more or less intact seem frankly superhuman. Prominently featured: sham leadership, ethical vacuity, corruption, betrayal, guilt, and an individual struggle to to avoid being overwhelmed and erased. The flesh-and-blood characters double as social types in a harsh allegory of Japan’s collective refusal to admit unbearable truths. Little by little, the full weight of blame is laid on civil and military authorities. The Japanese Emperor himself is presented with a kind of grisly bar tab: 3.1 million Japanese lives lost to the war. It’s been said with reason that this movie is too accusatory be made in Japan today. Relentless as he may be, you never detect in Fukasaku an attitude either of cruelty or of smug superiority. He acknowledges human weakness, without quite excusing it; but his utmost condemnation is reserved for societies that recklessly sacrifice their citizens in the pursuit of power. Sachiko Hidari’s performance gives the movie its moral center. Though the tone is often surreal, there is never a false note from any of the actors. It’s really great work all round. The 2005 North American DVD release features a clean 16:9 transfer, and some unusually helpful extras.
