OKAMOTO Kihachi ---a tribute to a director, a master pitching a curve ball
Starting this week, Japanese Film Festival 2015 in Singapore is held at the National Museum of Singapore. This year, there is an OKAMOTO Kihachi retrospective as a part of the festival. In association with that retrospective, I would like to offer a modest introduction on the director, Okamoto Kihachi, focusing on some of his films with war themes from his 27 films screened in the festival.
Here is their website:
“They can’t even live past 20 years. Sad music for them is too hard.
Send them off with lively music.
Else, they cannot stay dying.”
(from “Fort Graveyard” directed by Okamoto Kihachi)
OKAMOTO Kihachi is regarded as the representative “Senchu-ha” director. “Senchu-ha (generation from the war)” refers to the generation who lived and survived through the Second World War in their youth and rebuilt post war Japan through high economic growth. In Okamoto’s “The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman”, the protagonist, Mr. Eburi described the war years as “the last years of youth”. Okamoto who was 21-year-old at the end of the War, lived as a youth through those war years, living them as his life’s last years, knowing that he will not live long enough to be an adult.
When Japan committed to the Second World War in 1941, Okamoto expected his life span would be for about 23 years. He was then only 17-year-old. After graduated from college, Okamoto joined Toho Movie Co. in 1943, but in the same year, he was commandeered by the military to work as an engineer in a plane factory. The next year, he received his ‘red postcard’ and he joined the army as a military cadet. While he was not dispatched overseas, he had to undergo ridiculous and horrible war training like carrying and running away to set up a heavy box of bomb to the bottom of a tank. In April 29, 1945, the day Okamoto was transferred to the Reserve Military Academy of Toyohashi, the Academy was bombed by one of the Allies air raids. Okamoto saw with his own eyes his fellow cadets dying covered in blood, guts ripped out and legs and arms blown up. In the summer of 1945, upon his discharge from the Academy, he found that half of his old hometown classmates never came back. That was war for Okamoto Kihachi.
Despite this trauma, Okamoto did not bring high-toned ideology into his films. Instead, he made a kicking war action film like Western film, which does not look serious on the surface. That was “Desperado Outpost” in 1959 and its continuing the Desperado Army series. In there, Okamoto made fun of the army rules, of the system; he responded to the absurdity of war with dry humour. For his protagonist outlaws from the military, the main motivation in war was to survive instead of dying for the nation. In expressing war like a game to be played, Okamoto implicated that war is worthless and foolish; Keeping pure excitement and thrill as war action film, observing the ridiculousness of war with a cool and sometimes sarcastic eye. Such Okamoto’s sense was unique, standing out in Japanese film industry where generally to express emotion or sentiment is prevailing.
Beyond the Desperado Army series, another great achievement was a masterpiece, “Fort Graveyard” in 1965. In the worsening situation toward the end of the War, an unheard-of sergeant played by MIFUNE Toshiro led a boys military band in an operation to recover a fort called “Yakiba (a crematory)”. The words mentioned above, “They can’t even live past 20 years…” is said by the sergeant, Mifune in a scene from the film when some of the boy soldiers killed in action were buried.
On the other hand, in the comedy, “The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman” (1963), Okamoto describes the daily life of Mr. Eburi, a “Senchu-ha” salaryman coping with the generation gap and post war trauma. In the film, Mr. Eburi’s father who belonged to the older generation, reflected the ups and downs of Japan itself in his life. And Mr. Eburi played terrifically by KOBAYASHI Keiju laid bare the feelings of “Senchu-ha” like deep-seated grudge. “The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman” was seen to be too innovative for the studio. Toho producer, FUJIMOTO Sanezumi was not pleased with this film and scolded Okamoto, describing the film as a “curve ball” with reference to a baseball pitching style. Despite this, the comedy went on to become one of Okamoto’s masterpieces.
“Japan’s Longest Day (a.k.a. The Emperor and a General)” (1967) is about the last 24 hours of 15 August 1945, showing the struggle of the military authority, the politicians on the radio broadcasting the Emperor’s edict and the resulting coup d’etat by young officers rejecting the termination of the War. The film is 2 and a half hours long, but Okamoto’s tight direction and speedy editing keeps the story suspenseful throughout. While the film is quite entertaining, Okamoto’s underlying cynical view of war is there. The young officers’ voices bawling to urge the revolt for the continuity of the war sound empty and their pure belief for the nation brings to the audience the madness and horror of war.
After “Japan’s Longest Day (a.k.a. The Emperor and a General)”, Okamoto had an irresistible urge to make “Human Bullet (a.k.a. Nikudan)” (1968). While the former was about the end of the War from the perspective of the leaders, the latter was the end of the War from the viewpoint of a young, unknown and weak soldier unnamed as ‘he’, who is also an alter ego for Okamoto. “Human Bullet (a.k.a. Nikudan)” is a fiction based on Okamoto’s experiences during the war. He made it outside of Toho Studio, sharing the production cost with an independent company for arts film, Art Theater Guild (ATG), owing a debt for that. Like his usual work, “Human Bullet (a.k.a. Nikudan)” makes fun of the army, with humorous sequences involving the last 24 hours leave of a suicide attack soldier. On the other hand, the film is sometimes filled with strong poetry and delicate sorrow not seen in his previous films. By the way, when “Human Bullet (a.k.a. Nikudan)” was produced, Okamoto’s wife, OKAMOTO Mineko ran about borrowing money for the production cost on behalf of her husband. Later Okamoto Mineko became a film producer and continued supporting her husband in production work.
In 1971, Okamoto directed “Battle of Okinawa”, about the only ground battle in Japan where 200,000 people were killed. Working with a limited budget from Toho, Okamoto managed to show the war from both sides of the military and the citizens, describing each character well as an individual while never letting the film become heroic or spectacle.
The entertaining crime comedy, “Rainbow Kids” (1991) was about a 82-year-old granny kidnapped for her huge estate by 3 young amateur criminals. At the last sequence of the film, the granny said to herself “What has the nation been for me?”
In Okamoto’s films, there is a consistent underlying humanism. It does not matter whether it is a war film or not. Like the Japanese proverb “Issun no Mushi nimo Gobu no Tamashi (even a small worm has his own pride; it is similar to a English phrase “even a worm will turn”.)”, it is anger against individual sacrifice for a national polity, condition or authority. But that anger is seldom shown directly. Okamoto tried to make his work entertaining first. In the sprightly rhythm of direction and editing, he made ‘insignificant’ characters lively, sometimes laughing the absurdity of war, sometimes observing the horror of war. In there, Okamoto’s humanism is like a secret pinch, instead of shouting in a loud voice, it arrives engraved in the audience’ heart. (8 July 2015)
Toho Shuppan Jigyo-shitsu (Toho Publishing Department) “Kihachi: Artisan with Four Beat” published by Toho Publishing Department in Japan in 1992
OKAMOTO Kihachi “Majime to Fumajime no Aida (Between Seriousness and Unseriousness)” published by Chikuma Shobo in Japan in 2011
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