• みんなわが子 (All My Children)

5/2/26 (Sat)

Ieki Miyoji’s 1963 elegiac work follows several dozen kids evacuated from Tokyo to safer areas away from their families during the war, based on an actual record of children moved from a Tokyo elementary school. The filmmakers were themselves familiar with such experiences and have clearly recreated this with heart. The setting is a village in the Kanto region in what we now know were the final months of the war.

The story for the most part is of a community rather than specific characters, but it provides a vivid picture of how life must have been for these primary-school-age kids, separated from their families by a war that they can’t possibly understand. They are not entirely isolated from the situation: they are taught about fighter jets in school, train with spears to repel foreign invaders, sing patriotic songs about dying for the country (“Let us die together, scattering like cherry blossoms”), and are warned against falling for radio broadcasts that Okinawa has been conquered, dismissed as enemy propaganda. When one mother comes to retrieve her child, he refuses to betray others by leaving for family life. He tells her to her shock that he wants to be a kamikaze pilot, which brings her to tears.

Another mother just wants to see her son, and is allowed to sneak in while he’s asleep as long as she doesn’t wake or talk to him. The tender moment as she touches her sleeping child manages to stay just short of melodrama. Yet another mother comes with food for her kid, careful of course to bring enough for others as well. The harsh life for the kids is shown in their constant hunger, leading them to steal sweets from their teacher’s desk and sweet potatoes from an unsympathetic farming household. They are seen eating toothpaste and paint in effort to fill their empty stomachs.

At the same time, we see them engaged in normal child activities like playing pranks, playing games (a sumo match with lice was new for me), fighting, studying, bullying, gossiping, hanging out. As tough as life is, it is the life they know, and, like kids anywhere, they do their best to make the most of it, buoyed by the camaraderie and shared experience.

The only real drama is the air raids that eventually find them, forcing them to evacuate further to a small mountain village, where poverty and life is even rougher. One sick kid left behind ends up dying in a subsequent bombing.

The most moving scene is at the end. The stunned adults listen in grief to the emperor’s surrender broadcast, one of them screaming that the nation should have continued to the last man. At that same time, the kids run around the temple holding a spontaneous joyous festival, understanding only that they’ll finally be able to go home.

While a number of character types are featured – the bullying kid, a cantankerous priest – the film is drawn on a broad canvas with no real focus on specific stories, though Nakahara Hitomi stands out as a kind teacher. It remains ably short of treacle, standing as a fantastic documentary-like work made by people who were there. The acting is realistic throughout, including completely naturalistic performances by the children. It is neither nostalgic nor preachy, simply showing conditions like they must have been. It is an irreplaceable work, a much more effective anti-war piece than more overtly dramatic films. Essential viewing.