Well said, Dream_seeker. I saw this film when it originally aired on HBO and it affected me profoundly. I watched it again today for the second time and was just as moved. It is as gut-wrenching as any film I have ever seen, fiction or non-fiction. It will make any grown man cry, even a hardened one, as long as a heart beats within him. This is an astounding piece of film-making and should be required viewing for high school students all over the world.
{SPOILERS} Why? The common theme from every one of the survivors interviewed is the same: Never again. As another reviewer noted, George Santayana's observation that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" couldn't be more apt here. Indeed, the first scenes of interviews of young Japanese persons on the street drive home this point right away as they reveal that they have indeed forgotten and are clueless about the all-too-recent history of their elders. The survivors and those who died as a result of the bombings suffered horrors that should be unimaginable, but were and are still all too real and painful. As one of the survivors noted, those emotionally and physically painful experiences should end with them. No human beings should ever have to face those horrors again.
This is mostly a Japanese production (just watch the credits). Despite the obvious temptation to do so, the Japanese filmmakers deserve tremendous credit for exercising grace and restraint by not engaging in historical revisionism or anti-Americanism. They ensure the viewer sees and hears the survivors of the atomic bombs almost universally placing blame for their cities being bombed at the feet of the Japanese government for starting the war and for keeping Japan in it long after all hope for victory was lost. Some even became activists to petition the Japanese government to own up to its role and grant them medical and other benefits.
The filmmakers are so even-handed as to allow the surviving crew members from the Enola Gay to express no regret for doing their duty, without making them appear callous or cold. The filmmakers also portray an officer from the crew warning young yahoos who might be hawkish about nukes today that "nuking" someone is something no one should ever have to do, or even contemplate ever doing again. There is a surreal bit from the 1950s television show "This Is Your Life" in which a captain from the Enola Gay appears and expresses regret and remorse to a kind Japanese reverend on a humanitarian mission for women disfigured by the atomic bombings. "My God, what have we done?" he tells the reverend and the TV audience he thought after the crew flew away from the flash, the mushroom cloud, and the devastated city below them.
One remarkable Japanese woman who was horribly disfigured by the bomb even shares that when she saw him on TV, she cried for the American captain from the Enola Gay because of the enormous guilt he obviously bore when he appeared on "This Is Your Life." I found it very moving and admirable that after everything she endured, that gentle woman still possessed the humanity, grace, and compassion to feel for one of the Americans who took part in causing all that death, despair, and destruction. She cried not for herself and her own painful experiences, but for him instead. Wow.
Despite all the sadness and horror portrayed in this film, there is a ray of light in the humanity and dignity the survivors display. They were each very brave to bare their tremendously personal and private pain in a film for public consumption, but none of them asked for pity, and none of them stood on a political soapbox. The only message they wanted to convey was simple and selfless. Never again. {END SPOILERS}
The filmmakers have made a film that not only is impossible to forget, but one which does the whole human race a public service as well. They have portrayed in a way as honest and unvarnished as possible just how horrific is the reality of the personal costs of using nuclear weapons. Let us hope we listen to the survivors and remember their cautionary tales. Never again.
{SPOILERS} Why? The common theme from every one of the survivors interviewed is the same: Never again. As another reviewer noted, George Santayana's observation that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" couldn't be more apt here. Indeed, the first scenes of interviews of young Japanese persons on the street drive home this point right away as they reveal that they have indeed forgotten and are clueless about the all-too-recent history of their elders. The survivors and those who died as a result of the bombings suffered horrors that should be unimaginable, but were and are still all too real and painful. As one of the survivors noted, those emotionally and physically painful experiences should end with them. No human beings should ever have to face those horrors again.
This is mostly a Japanese production (just watch the credits). Despite the obvious temptation to do so, the Japanese filmmakers deserve tremendous credit for exercising grace and restraint by not engaging in historical revisionism or anti-Americanism. They ensure the viewer sees and hears the survivors of the atomic bombs almost universally placing blame for their cities being bombed at the feet of the Japanese government for starting the war and for keeping Japan in it long after all hope for victory was lost. Some even became activists to petition the Japanese government to own up to its role and grant them medical and other benefits.
The filmmakers are so even-handed as to allow the surviving crew members from the Enola Gay to express no regret for doing their duty, without making them appear callous or cold. The filmmakers also portray an officer from the crew warning young yahoos who might be hawkish about nukes today that "nuking" someone is something no one should ever have to do, or even contemplate ever doing again. There is a surreal bit from the 1950s television show "This Is Your Life" in which a captain from the Enola Gay appears and expresses regret and remorse to a kind Japanese reverend on a humanitarian mission for women disfigured by the atomic bombings. "My God, what have we done?" he tells the reverend and the TV audience he thought after the crew flew away from the flash, the mushroom cloud, and the devastated city below them.
One remarkable Japanese woman who was horribly disfigured by the bomb even shares that when she saw him on TV, she cried for the American captain from the Enola Gay because of the enormous guilt he obviously bore when he appeared on "This Is Your Life." I found it very moving and admirable that after everything she endured, that gentle woman still possessed the humanity, grace, and compassion to feel for one of the Americans who took part in causing all that death, despair, and destruction. She cried not for herself and her own painful experiences, but for him instead. Wow.
Despite all the sadness and horror portrayed in this film, there is a ray of light in the humanity and dignity the survivors display. They were each very brave to bare their tremendously personal and private pain in a film for public consumption, but none of them asked for pity, and none of them stood on a political soapbox. The only message they wanted to convey was simple and selfless. Never again. {END SPOILERS}
The filmmakers have made a film that not only is impossible to forget, but one which does the whole human race a public service as well. They have portrayed in a way as honest and unvarnished as possible just how horrific is the reality of the personal costs of using nuclear weapons. Let us hope we listen to the survivors and remember their cautionary tales. Never again.