ANPO: Art x War ***1/2
(2011) 89 min. DVD: $95: public libraries & high schools; $275: colleges &
universities. New Day Films. PPR. ISBN: 978-1-56592-479-6.

Linda Hoaglund’s documentary focuses on the 1960 controversy surrounding the
renewal of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security -also
known as ANPO-which allowed the U.S. to continue operating nearly 100
military bases across Japan. Significant opposition developed throughout
Japan, but Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi (who had none-too-covert backing
from the CIA) successfully routed his opponents in parliament and ordered
police to use force in putting down public demonstrations staged in Tokyo.
The animosity towards Kishi and the continued presence of American troops
became so intense that a planned state visit by U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower had to be cancelled; Kishi resigned shortly afterwards, his
political career effectively over. Hoaglund examines the 1960 protests
through the creative work and commentary of visual artists who were either
participants or used the events of five decades ago to shape their artistic
output and political philosophy. ANPO features loads of artwork that puts
the U.S. military in a harshly unflattering light (several paintings have
not been publicly displayed in many years), supplemented by vintage newsreel
and photojournalist coverage of the conflict. Present-day American troops
also offer comments as Hoaglund shoots her film. A fascinating documentary
dealing with the development of post-WWII Japan and the history of U.S.
military involvement in Asia, this is highly recommended.

Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)

Oishi: Our experience of the bomb? The situation was, as usual, the work of tuna fishing starts at 1AM at night. We start working around 1AM and we lay all the nets out to sea and for the next 2 or 3 hours we kill the engine and drift until the fish bite. That’s when the explosion happened. But we had no idea that it was an explosion or a nuclear weapon. But a terrible scene unfolded before our eyes… It was still before dawn and in the instant of the explosion…

9:32 It wasn’t pitch black. The sky was just getting ready for dawn, like that, dawn was just about to arrive, that’s the kind of sky it was. So it wasn’t pitch black but the sky was still dark and so the color of the explosion seemed especially intense to our eyes. The color was just like the color of a sunset. The way a sunset burns the sky, the colors just flowed from one side of the horizon to the other, very swiftly and it stayed that way. It didn’t vanish. That’s what happened and so this was unthinkable under any normal circumstances, but we had no way of even imagining what had happened. And what I thought then was that a natural disaster, like a huge underwater explosion had happened or a meteorite had fallen. My thoughts turned to some kind of natural disaster.

10:45 And, also the sound… If the sound had immediately followed the blast of light you could imagine it was an explosion of some kind but the sound took a while… They say it followed 7 or 8 minutes later, it was a long time before the sound came. And the sound itself was different from the sound of an explosion. It was a roar that came rumbling up from the bottom of the sea.

12:34 I think that must have been the mushroom cloud, but time had passed so it no longer looked like a mushroom and I think its very top must have reached the stratosphere. More than 10 minutes had passed. And then the clouds at the very top began to disintegrate and race towards us at full speed, covering us. But we were upwind. It was unthinkable that a cloud that we were upwind from would cover us, so we were stupefied at all these completely unthinkable things that kept happening one after the other and we were so anxious. Time just kept passing as we all wondered “What is this? What happened?” About one hour and a half later, that white powder started falling on us.

Pure white, it fell down on us just like when it snows, but that was also unthinkable. Why would it snow in the southern sea and why was all this white stuff… So much of it fell on us. We didn’t know what it was.

13:48 It kept falling the whole time we were working so it fell for about 6 hours or so. It kept falling until we finished working. And it was falling so much that it piled up on the deck, just like snow would pile and if you walked on it you could see your footprints in it. On the deck, there’s always water flowing, seawater is always being poured over the deck but still it piled up so I think a huge amount of it fell. The ashes piled up on our bodies, above our headbands if we were wearing them, and we were working shirtless, just in our undershirts so a lot of it fell inside our shirts and piled up under our belts. It pricked and if it was snow it should have melted but it didn’t melt and instead it felt prickly so I couldn’t figure out what it was, but we didn’t have time to shake it off us. Because we were working and we just kept working with it just piled up there.

And then two days later, the places where the ashes had landed on our bodies, started swelling up. Dots of swelling and water was in them. So we wondered what it was but those places where the ashes had piled up started swelling up with water inside them. The surface skin would peel off and we work in the sea and when the saltwater would hit it, the pain was searing, I do remember that.

16:50 I learned later that they were radiation burns. The radiation burns had caused blisters. And about 10 days later, this time we noticed our hair had started to fall out. One of our crew was combing his hair and all this hair came out. We wondered what it was and tried combing our own and although painless, it wastefully fell out. Once that happened, we knew things weren’t normal and we started thinking back over things and decided that the white powder must be the cause of it. That’s what we were thinking when we made it into port. (to be continued)

가시나무 – The Thorn Tree – とげの木

내속엔 내가 너무도 많아 당신에 쉴곳 없네

僕の中に僕があまりにも多くて　あなたの休むところがない

There’s so much of me inside me,
there’s no place for you to rest

내속엔 헛된바람들로 당신에 편할곳 없네

僕の中には古い望みで　あなたの落ち着くところがない

My own tired hopes leave no room
for you to find comfort

내속엔 내가 어쩔수 없는 어둠

僕の中には僕がどうすることもできない暗闇

Inside me there’s darkness
beyond my control

당신에 쉴자리를 뺏고

あなたの休む場を奪い

I robbed you of your resting place

내속엔 내가 이길수 없는 슬픔

僕の中には僕が勝てない悲しみ

Inside me is sadness
I cannot overpower

무성한 가시나무숲 같네

生い茂った茨の森のよう

Like a forest thick with thorn trees

바람만 불면 그 메마른 가지

風が吹けばその干からびた枝

When the wind blows
the barren branches

서로 부대끼며 울어대고

互いに苦しめられながら泣いて

rustle against each other,
crying in agony

쉴곳을 찾아 지쳐날아온

休むところを求めて疲れ飛んできた

Young birds in desperate flight
for a resting place,

어린 새들도 가시에 찔려 날아가고

幼い鳥たちもとげに刺されて飛んで行き

fly away, pricked by the thorns

바람만 불면 외롭고 또 괴로워

風が吹けば寂しくも辛く

When the wind blows,
loneliness stings me

슬픈노래를 부르던 날이 많았는대

悲しい歌を歌っていた日が多かったのに

Though there were so many days
when I sang of sadness,

내속엔 내가 너무도 많아서 당신에 쉴곳 없네

僕の中には僕があまりにも多くて　あなたの休むところがない

There’s so much of me inside me,
there’s no place for you to rest