Review 2 (Yuki)

Point of View
This movie is filmed in Japanese point of view. In this movie, women and children have roles just as important as men. The girl looked at the sky and bomb just explodes without any caution. This is the view from below. It shows Japanese lives right before A-bomb, it certainly is Japanese point of view. There are few scenes of Korean soliders and English soliders. Those Korean soldiers speak in Korean. Perhaps this is not really Japanese point of view, but I doubt if this was Korean point of view. I think this scene's point of view is anonymous, it just depicts the situation of that time.

Form of Social Criticism
I think this movie gives us a little sence of absurdism. Absurdism is the feeling people get when they can't find any meanings to life, people, and themselves. From the line in the beginning, "Should humans be erased like fog just the same as my mother and father?", audience gets the idea that something bad is going to happen to these characters but all they can do is just to keep on watching till the ends. In some sense, audience is waiting for their time to come. After bomb explodes, it makes each individual's life, all the joy and struggles, meaningless. This gave me a feeling of absurdism.
This movie also has nihilism. Just like "The man who stole the sun", all the struggles that characters went through and joy of life become nothing when nuclear explodes. There is nothing left. We don't know who survived and who died but the movie ends with explosion and it really makes it seem as if the world is over (at least their world is over).
The line "should human be erased like a fog the same as my mother and father?" gives us negative feeling, but I thought it may give us a little of hope as well. It says "my mother and father", thus it may be implying that the baby survived. I am not sure whether the director implied this or not, but I think it can be read in that way as well. (In addition, this line comes from a real person who survived from the bomb in Nagasaki, so there is a possibility of survival, and at least there are people who survived, there is a little hope.)

Reflection

After studying about this movie, I think the main message is that it can happen to anyone. I did not think that this movie is trying to make audience sympathize (althought, as a result, audience would). In this film, there is no any particular main character. Everyone in the film is important and they all have different things to deal with in life. It really dipicts our lives in the way that each individual are different and we encounter different events in life. In addition he also showed us Korean solider's life and English solider's life. They were in Nagasaki, thus they also died from Atomic Bomb. People who died from Atomic Bomb is not only Japanese and it could be anyone if s/he were in Nagasaki. No one has a reason to be killed by A-bomb. That's the message that I got from this film.

In the view of cinema studies...

I thought about this movie in the view of cinema studies.

Without the last scene, this film seems just one of the human drama which contains laughing and sadness. We can realize the meaning of the title ‘Ashita’ after seeing the last scene.

The word ‘ Should human be erased like a fog the same as my father and mother ?’of the first part in this film is so important. This word connects with the last bombed scene, and it makes this story more grief.

Describing many kinds of people who are no related each other, this film try to tell that the atomic bomb can erase many kinds of people’s life easily.

All American movies have the happy-end, some Japanese movies have the sad last scene. This film especially has the shocking last scene in the Japanese films, I think.

Review 1 (Yuki)

Cinema studies and cultural studies (factors contributed the film)

Throughout this movie, music made the scenes very peaceful. The music was slow and very kind. If there is no line in the beginning of the movie, "should humans be erased like fog just the same as my mother and father?", audience wouldn't think the movie would end in such tragedy.

Most of the factors in this movie are dramatic truth. The vertile truth we can find is time records and image of A-bomb. Some of the images of buildings in Nagasaki is based on facts but since it was destroyed by the bomb, producers must have made imitation of the building. Also, the "red paper" to inform draft was actually used. On the internet, I have read that the line "Should human be erased like a fog just the same as my mother and father" came from actual survivor of the bomb, but there is no detail like who said it and so on.

The time records is vertile truth. I am not sure if this image is real A-bomb dropped in Nagasaki. I could not find out.


The image of Urakami Tensyu Do (Urakami Cathedral), located 500m (1640ft.) northeast from center of the explosion. Urakami is the name of the place. It can also be translated as St. Mary's Cathedral, and it was known as the biggest cathedral in East of that time, until it was destroyed by A-Bomb. No one in the cathedral survived. Its wreckage and melted statue of Mary are one of the most famous thing to see in Nagasaki Peace Museum.
Cathedral was rebuilt in 1959, but its appearance is different from original. Since there wasn't and technology of color animation, this image must be the imitation of original cathedral.

This is the real record of Urakami Cathedral after it was destroyed by Atomic Bomb.
Photo by AIHARA Hidetsugu, in his photographic collection "Genbaku wo Mitsumeru" (Looking at Atomic Bomb).
Taken in Jan. 7th, 1946.

See: World War II Database

Around the time this movie was made (1988), Japan was in the middle of Bubble economy. In one of Kuroki's interviews, he said that producers could gather big amount of money for the production. In addition, Toho (the industry) is one of the biggest film industry in Japan. It convinces why he could choose those famous actors (most of the actors in the movie were very famous and popular in Japan.)

In Kuroki's interviews, he said his experience of living in colony and losing his friends in aerial bombing, had alwasy been the biggest memory in his life. I think this experiences in his childhood contributed his will to make films about A-Bomb. When making the film one before "Tomorrow - Ashita", he had an opportunity to talk with hibakusya (the survivor of the bomb) from Nagasaki, and it gave him shock. He knew of Inoue, the writer, and approched that he wanted to make a movie on Inoue's book, "Ashita". In his later years, He made three films on A-bomb and in all of the three, main characters are ordinary citizens. I think he wanted to pay attention to individuals who experienced war, perhaps this is why his movies are called Trilogy of Requiem, for those who died in the war.

Some of the critics say that his earlier works are experimental. As he became old he started to talk about his childhood experience. Critics say that these films on war were what he really wanted to do for his life.

Review

‘Ashita’ is a very different bomb movie compared to those we have watched in class.  It depicts the life of Nagasaki people before the bomb was dropped, instead of the sufferings and effects of the bomb. 

In ‘Ashita’, the anti-war message is very strong.  Although almost everyone in the film had a very happy day on the 8 August, their happiness was not complete.  Their loved ones were not around because of the war: Shoji and Yae were holding a simply wedding ceremony and most of their friends could not come to share their joy; Tsuruko was giving birth to her first baby but her husband was not around.  Akiko even has to separate with her boyfriend as he received the Call from the military.  

All the happiness was obscured by the war, and the director also included some foreigners, the American David and the two Koreans, to show that the war not only destroying Japan, but their allies and enemies as well.  The director was tried to make the Japanese realized that they should not only have pity on themselves because the bombs were dropped on their land, they should also be sorry because their countries chose to participate in the WWII.  This idea of reminding the Japanese that they were both victim and assailant in WWII is also included in 'Gojira' (1954), while it came out because of the continuous testing of nuclear bomb, it also released radioactive fire to destroyed Tokyo.

The director also shows nihilism in the film – there is no hope, no happy ending, just like ‘I live in Fear’ (1955, Akira Kurosawa) and ‘The Man Who Stole the Sun’ (1979, Kazuhiko Hasegawa).  No matter how perfect the day was, there was no future, nothing good would be left, because the bomb would destroy them all.  The film ends with the footage of the atomic bomb and the date and time when the bomb exposed.  The director probably wanted to remind the audience what shown before were not all fabricated, those things did really happened.  The director did not include any after-bomb scenes, so that it allowed audience to imagine themselves what would happen to the characters.  This probably could bring forth a greater impact to the audience than filming an afterward. 

Through this film, the director also wanted the audience to treasure every chance we have today.  Just like Shoji’s stepfather said, “no one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.  I should do what I can do today.”  The stepfather knew how to treasure because he once faced the death of his loved one, Shoji’s mother.  He understood that human’s life is so fragile that it can be gone in a sudden.  However, as Shoji was so young when his mother passed away, he did not learn the lesson.  If he knew there would be no tomorrow, he would not hesitate to tell Yae about his mother.  

Although the film ends in such a nihilism way, there is a scene which gives a little comfort to the audience.  It is the movie that Haruko watched.  The man said that even he only lived with his father for a week, he was still very happy because it was always his dream.  This refers to Yae and Shoji, even they only married for one day, and Tsuruko’, whose baby only one-day-old, they would still feel happy because their dreams fulfilled. 

Analysis of the movie

1. Emphasizing constrast events

-> The director wanted to show us happy scenes before dropping A-bomb to maximize sadness.
     Characters also hope there is another tomorrow for them. But actually it isn't.
     There are three happy scenes in the movie: childbirth, love and get married.


Childbirth

    Love

     Marriage

        
      and.......
   

   


 2. Symbolic scenes

Here, a fly is flying around the light and the fly soon died. It means nihilism indirectly by showing the fly.
Even though people try hard to live daily life, they all disapper in the air.

The moon is quite bright and it looks like to explode soon. We thought two interpretation. One is the director wanted to foreshadow that there will be an A-bomb soon. The other explanation is the director gave life to the moon and it expressed the sadness of tomorrow A-bomb dropping.

Two soldiers wanted food, but the owner of the store refused to give food to them. From this scene, the director shows we are not only the victim of the war, but also assailant to the other countries expecially Korea. So he pursued balanced idea in the movie.

American soldier needs food, but the owner of the shop refused to give food to the American soldier

cause America is the one who dropped bomb to Japan.

Main characters in the movie

      ( mother & her daughter Tsuruchan)

     

      <David & Tsuguchan>

   

      <Shoji & Yae>

      <Aki& Hideo>

Story:

In Nagasaki, August 9 in 1945, the atomic bomb dropped. This story describes that daily life of people in Nagasaki before a day when the atomic bomb is dropped. This movie describes human drama that people feel joyful and sadness in daily life. August 8 in Nagasaki, there were a couple of man and woman who held the wedding, and parturient pregnant woman, and the lovers who must say good-bye because of the invitation from an army. Each people were going to live desperately with dreaming ‘tomorrow’. But ‘Tomorrow’ will never come for them. Because they are killed by atomic bomb ‘tomorrow’.