It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film with such a strong visual impact as Hideo Sekigawa‘s ‘Hiroshima‘. I have no hesitation in saying that, at least in my experience, what this Japanese director, whom I didn’t know at all, made in 1953 comes close in terms of expressiveness of images to the masterpieces of Eisenstein and Fritz Lang or to the films of his contemporaries, the masters of Italian neo-realism. The film was made only eight years after the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima and its production has a specific context that also explains the rhetoric of the message, which was controversial at the time and remains open to debates today, due to the different historical perspectives of the event it describes. ‘Hiroshima‘ was not financed by the major studios but by the Japanese teachers’ union of the time and thousands of extras, many of them survivors of the nuclear explosion, participated voluntarily in its making. It is a film that deserves to be seen both as a historical document and as a document of the way history is reflected in the art of cinema.
The film is organized in two temporal planes that also delimit two cinematic styles. The story begins in 1953, describing a society that tries to heal its wounds and understand what happened, by using the micro-universe of a school class. The children were old enough eight years before to remember what they went through. They are divided into two distinct groups, as the entire Japanese society of that time was probably divided. Some of them carry the traumas in their bodies and souls and a few of those are affected by the ‘atomic disease’, that is, the effects of radiation. Others try to forget, leave the past behind, and continue with their lives. The narrative then returns to August 5-6, 1945, on the eve and the day of the nuclear attack. The quiet of the sunny day is interrupted by the hum of an airplane, the alarm doesn’t even sound, a blinding light bursts out, and hell on earth breaks loose. The 15-20 minutes that follow are among the most dramatic ever created in world cinema. I’ve seen countless apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films, but what Hideo Sekigawa and his team achieved 72 years ago not only anticipates, but equals and surpasses in expressiveness and realism almost everything that followed. The use of black and white film accentuates the feeling of immersion in history and horror. In all this nightmarish chaos, a few characters begin to stand out, whose stories are followed when, towards the end, the film returns to the present day of 1953, following their destinies.
The political commentary is engaged and critical, and it is remarkable that it does not only refer to those who triggered the disaster but also to the deeper causes of the conflict – Japanese militarism and the blind veneration of the imperial institution. The government rhetoric is ridiculous and the appeal to patriotism in moments of catastrophe seems pathetic. A meeting of the governors is more concerned with the propagandistic denial of the disaster than with recognizing reality and organizing aid for the survivors. The ceremonies organized at the site of the bomb with symbolic monuments and pacifist slogans seem devoid of content in the absence of popular engagement. But history was only just beginning to be written, the debate remains open and the danger of atomic apocalypse has not been eradicated. I think Sekigawa‘s ‘Hiroshima‘ could be screened together with Christopher Nolan’s recent and much-awarded ‘Oppenheimer’. They are two very good films that depict the two sides of the event that changed the course of history.