Films Contemplating Peace: Part 6; “Fragments of the Last Will”Hiroshima for Global Peace

Films Contemplating Peace: Part 6; “Fragments of the Last Will”

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　The theater management company Johakyu, which operates the Hatchoza and Salon Cinema theaters in Naka-ku, Hiroshima, screens over 200 films a year. The Johakyu members shared with us their recommendations for “films contemplating peace that you should see now.”

　“Fragments of the Last Will” is a biographical film about Yamamoto Hatao, a real Japanese person who was detained in a Siberian internment 　camp (lager) after the end of World War II.

　Soviet troops, who breached the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and invaded Manchuria, northern Korea, and Sakhalin on August 9^th, 1945, took Japanese soldiers and civilians into internment camps in various parts of the Soviet Union. Although it is said that approximately 600,000 Japanese people were detained, the true number of people is still not known. According to one theory, over 60,000 Japanese people lost their lives carrying out severe forced labor without enough food or nutrition while longing for home in internment camps in Siberia, where the severe winters see temperatures drop below -40 degrees Celsius.

　You are suddenly taken into custody in a foreign country and isolated in a concentration camp in an unfamiliar place, unable to even check on the safety of your family, who you were ripped apart from amid the chaos at the end of the war. The other detainees are losing their lives one after another due to malnutrition or disease in a very bad environment where you are forced to do heavy labor day after day. Ninomiya Kazunari powerfully plays the role of Yamamoto Hatao, the man who continued to encourage his colleagues despite these conditions in the internment camp, as he firmly advocated for holding onto hope and living like humans, despite the fact that more and more people around him were falling into despair or closing off their hearts, unable to find a reason to live through these desperate days that felt just moments away from death. Kitagawa Keiko plays the role of Momiji, Yamamoto’s wife who continued to wait for his return while raising their four children at the mercy of the times, believing that he would return to Japan. Matsuzaka Tori, Nakajima Kento, Terao Akira, Kiritani Kenta, and Yasuda Ken round out the talented cast of supporting actors.

　Even today, after a long time has passed since the tragedy of the Siberian internment camps, there is an endless trend of families being separated and people unfairly facing violence as a result of disputes between countries.

“No matter how tough your days may be, you must participate in the creation of human culture and you must not forget the progressive thought of increasing the happiness of humankind. You must not get lost in extreme prejudiced thoughts. Always tread the path of freedom, benevolence, happiness, and justice that is based on earnest humanity.”

(Cited from “Farewell Notes from a Prison Camp” (Written by Henmi Jun), the novel that this film is based on)

　These are the words that Yamamoto Hatao sent from the internment camp to his four children. This can even be taken as a message that he left for humankind, as it creates a postwar world while learning from the mistakes of World War II, which left significant damage. This message resonates with everybody living in the modern world, where we see wars in various lands and feel an unending sense of entrapment due to the coronavirus pandemic.