IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS Part 2 : Thailand - NO ENG SUBS
Credited cast: IMAMURA Shôhei
Directed: IMAMURA Shôhei
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 43min
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: French, original hardcoded subs
Release Date:1971 (Japan)
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-FAQNaM0xQ
n Thailand, Imamura’s investigation brings him face to with a group of soldiers from different classes, each of whom has, in some way, committed war crimes while in the Japanese army. Imamura knows his subjects and decides to film them after a few drinks to elicit their feelings about the Emperor and the state of their lives today. A searing demolition of patriotism and a glimpse of what the Japanese consciousness holds dear.
from http://grunes.wordpress.com/2013/02...ned-soldiers-in-thailand-shohei-imamura-1971/
IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN THAILAND (Shohei Imamura, 1971)
Shohei Imamura’s brilliant, devastating television documentary In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Thailand (Mikikan-hei o otte: Tai-hen) concludes a pair of works begun the previous year with In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Malaysia. (Another documentary, Outlaw-Matsu Comes Home, 1973, functions as a coda to the two films.) The second film consists of the unscripted conversation of three middle-aged men, two of them doctors and the other a farm worker, as they drink and provide personal background, discuss their entrance into the Second World War and their own experience of war and the Japanese military, and explain why they did not return to Japan once the war was over. The setting is the riverfront home of one of them. Imamura, himself, intermittently contributes (for our ears only) his sparse voiceover. He interferes, then, as little as possible.
The most bracing part of the conversation is the laborer’s—Fujita’s—blind allegiance to Japan’s emperor and his rationalization for obedience to horrific military orders. Without a twinge of regret Fujita recounts igniting a hole he had forced 30,000 Chinese children to dig and enter before dousing it with gasoline. Fujita thus burned alive these people. He now explains he had to do this because if he had disobeyed the order to do so he, himself, would have been shot.
On the other hand, one of the other men, Toshida, an unlicensed doctor who serves the poor, lambasts the Japanese emperor, military and war effort. He adds that his participation in the war ruined his life.
The third man, Dr. Nakayama, greedy and selfish, holds himself aloof from humanity. He is the only one wearing a starched white shirt; he alone smokes cigarettes.
This is a stinging, fascinating 45 minutes.
http://www.waggish.org/2012/shohei-imamuras-documentaries-at-anthology/
In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Malaysia, In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Thailand (both 1971), and Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home (1973), each 50 minutes long, form a trilogy. The low-key titles belie the anti-authoritarian ethic at work: Imamura wants to find those who were enlisted by their country to fight, die, and murder on its behalf, and then abandoned. The latter two, in particular, contain some quintessential Imamura moments as unsettling as anything in his work.
In Thailand, Imamura hit gold: three soldiers of widely differing temperaments discuss their experiences with each other, often contentiously. Most of the film is devoted to the gripping and revelatory conversation between Fujita, Toshida, and Nakayama.
Fujita, from Kyushu, is a farmworker and ardent nationalist, bemoaning Japan’s loss and intolerant of any criticism of the Emperor. He collected thousands of dead soldiers’ fingers to bring home to widows in Japan, only to be told to stay in Thailand for 13 years, after which Japan would return for him. (That did not happen.) He also tells openly of war crimes:
Chinese children had to be killed. I must have done 30,000 of them. I put them in a concrete hole and poured oil and burnt them alive. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t about good or bad. If I didn’t kill them, I would have been killed. That’s how it was. I was a man born wild in Kyushu. I had to do what I had to do. So I killed them.
Those men with ranks, they’d have lots of money coming from somewhere. What right do they have to have mistresses? They r***ing the women and forced them to be mistresses. Those men were a disgrace to the Japanese army.
I’m hoping the younger generation will become more respectable with a strong Japanese spirit like the old generation. The basis of the Japanese spirit is, put simply, honoring the Emperor. We must be loyal at all times.
The other two are doctors, with little else in common. Nakayama remains silent for much of the film, though he tries to get Toshida removed at one point, and he comes across as fairly scummy, someone who has lived for himself without much care for others.
Toshida, however, is an irreverent, impassioned, and empathetic doctor who has turned pacifist, assimilated into the Thai community, and is aghast at the horrors of the war. He anticipates the title character of Imamura’s later Dr. Akagi (1998), the single-minded doctor only concerned with helping the sick and unfortunate, one at a time.
Toshida is tormented, though: he describes his war experiences, saying it has ruined his life.
I was in the guardhouse for disobedience. They forced me to do things that didn’t make sense. So I tried to escape. It made me hate my own country. Its stupidity. Nothing ever made sense.
Toshida listens sadly to Fujita, saying little, but seems more angry with Nakayama for neglecting his duties as a human being:
The greatest people are those who live and feel as a human. You might not understand this now, but you will soon.
I’m saying justice is greater than the Emperor. If you want to live an honest human life, you need to see things clearly. Do you understand? Do you?
Nakayama is like, “Banzai Emperor.” He’s an idiot! Idiot! I wish he’d use his brains and think.
[To Nakayama] You really need to think. Money has nothing to do with living a good life. It’s not about having more money than you need. You need to rethink humanity. I don’t take money from poor patients. They just thank me. I don’t take money from the poor. That’s inhuman. Even if it means my loss. You should travel through the countryside of Thai.
Toshida laughs that the other two are upset that he’s abusing the Emperor. Fujita simply tells Imamura: “If we were still soldiers, I’d kill him.”
Download
Big file:
Code:
http://ryushare.com/273300350a38/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.mkvSmall file:
Code:
http://uploaded.net/file/dje1i88c/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part10.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/jyk35i8b/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part09.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/9w92bjbp/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part11.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/z4f8l292/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part08.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/hhe925kc/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part07.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/89y2ktrg/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part06.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/h9ah5r9m/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part05.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/qiqlv4hp/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part04.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/7iggrgaq/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part03.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/08soqvll/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part02.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/tax08zso/IN.SEARCH.OF.THE.UNRETURNED.SOLDIERS.Part.2.Thailand.part01.rar