Under the Flag of the Rising Sun
/Saturday, May 8th 7:30 pm
Faux Real
Curated by Kevin Jarvis
Under the Flag of the Rising Sun
(Gunki hatameku motoni)
Dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 1972, 96 min.
Of the many fine films by Kinji Fukasaku released, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun is arguably the most unforgettable. Fukasaku claimed this was the film that crystallized his signature visual style, employing color, black and white, freeze-frames, negative images, documentary photographs, and shocking violence to tell the powerful story of a long-grieving widow in contemporary early 1970s Japan (Sachiko Hidari), still struggling to determine the truth behind her husband's court martial and execution on the New Guinea front during the final days of World War II. As she interviews surviving members of her husband's garrison in an effort to clear his name, a Rashomon-like tapestry of conflicting testimony unfolds to form a harrowing, collage of wartime atrocity, endurance, and survival by any means necessary.
