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The Thick-Walled Room
壁あつき部屋
Directed byMasaki Kobayashi
Screenplay byKōbō Abe
Produced byTakeshi Ogura
Starring
CinematographyHiroyuki Kusuda
Music byChūji Kinoshita
Production
company
Shin-ei Kurabu Pro
Distributed byShochiku
Release date
  • 31 October 1956 (1956-10-31) (Japan)[1][2]
Running time
110 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

The Thick-Walled Room (壁あつき部屋, Kabe atsuki heya) is a 1953 Japanese war drama film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The film was completed in 1953, but not released before 1956.[2][3]

Plot

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A group of former Japanese World War II soldiers, interned in Sugamo Prison as Class B and C war criminals, memorise their past. Yamashita had shot an Indonesian civilian by command of his superior Hamada and, after violent interrogations by U.S. military personnel following his arrest, was blamed by Hamada for acting without instructions at his trial. Yokota served as an interpreter in a prisoner-of-war camp and was ordered to participate in the flagellation of a prisoner, who later died of the maltreatment. He clings to memories of a young woman named Yoshiko, who now earns her money as a prostitute in Shinjuku. Kawanashi is haunted by images of killing a prisoner with a bayonet and eventually hangs himself in his cell.

When Yamashita learns that his mother and sister have fallen victim to Hamada's profiteering schemes, he attempts to break out to seek revenge, but is caught. Yokota tells his leftist activist brother about Yamashita's fate, who publishes the story in a newspaper. As a result, Yamashita refuses to speak with Yokota.

With the help of an appeal by his fellow prisoners, Yamashita is allowed to visit his home after his mother's death. Still intent on killing Hamada despite his sister's pleas, he goes to see his former superior, but, confronted with Hamada's cowardice, lets go of his plan and returns to Sugamo in time. He gives Yokota a package of sweets which he bought on the way, indicating that he has forgiven him.

Cast

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Production

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The Thick-Walled Room was produced by Shin-ei Kurabu Pro, an independent company affiliated with the Shochiku studio.[4] The screenplay was written by Kōbō Abe, based on actual diaries of jailed Japanese soldiers[1][5] which had been published in book form in 1953.[6] Filming of The Thick-Walled Room was completed the same year.[2][3] The film marked the screen debut of actor Tatsuya Nakadai who appeared in a small role.[7][8]

Release

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Due to the film's subject matter, the imprisonment of Japanese soldiers for committed war crimes and their mistreatment by members of the American forces, Shochiku shelved its release for three years.[3][9][10] An article published in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on 2 December 1953 stated that the studio board's decision had been made because of the film's anti-American content.[4] According to film critic Michael Koresky, the Japanese Government was concerned that the film would offend the United States and demanded cuts which Kobayashi refused, resulting in the delay of the release.[3] Shirō Kido, head of the Shochku studios, publicly declared that motion pictures were "a vehicle for the expression of emotion and not theory".[9]

Reception

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Reviewing the film in their 1959 book The Japanese Film – Art & Industry, Donald Richie and Joseph L. Anderson found the presentation of the imprisoned soldiers as innocents and of the war trials as unjust debatable, but acknowledged that it was one of the few Japanese motion pictures at the time which brought up the question of responsibility for the war.[9]

In her 2013 essay "Film and Soldier: Japanese War Movies in the 1950s", Sandra Wilson expressed an even more critical view, arguing that Kobayashi, contrary to his "deeply principled" The Human Condition, took the "clear view that such ordinary soldiers should not be considered criminals in any normal sense of the word", thus joining in a series of films (the others being Sugamo no haha and Yamashita Tomoyuki) that "attempted to influence the general view of war criminals at a time when public opinion on the subject was still evolving".[11]

In his 2017 book on director Kobayashi, author Stephen Prince titled The Thick-Walled Room the director's "true debut film, the first picture that shows fully the artistic profile that he would make his own" and "the first of his mature works of social criticism".[6] Still, Prince joined in the canon that Kobayashi's film suggested that the depicted war crimes were "occasional rather than systematic" and that the Japanese prisoners were held unfairly, suffering from the oppression imposed by a foreign power.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b "壁あつき部屋". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "壁あつき部屋". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d Koresky, Michael. "Eclipse Series 38: Kobayashi Against the System". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b Finke, Wayne; Kitabayashi, Hikaru, eds. (2015). Multilingual Perspectives in Geolinguistics (2 ed.). Lulu Press. p. 157.
  5. ^ "The Thick-Walled Room". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  6. ^ a b c Prince, Stephen (2017). A Dream of Resistance: The Cinema of Kobayashi Masaki. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813592350.
  7. ^ BWW News Desk (15 May 2015). "Museum of the Moving Image Honors Masaki Kobayashi & Tatsuya Nakadai Films, Now thru 5/24". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  8. ^ "Tatsuya Nakadai". Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  9. ^ a b c Anderson, Joseph L.; Richie, Donald (1959). The Japanese Film – Art & Industry. Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.
  10. ^ Jacoby, Alexander (2008). Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors: From the Silent Era to the Present Day. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 978-1-933330-53-2.
  11. ^ Wilson, Sandra (July 2013). "Film and Soldier: Japanese War Movies in the 1950s". Journal of Contemporary History. 48 (3): 537–555. doi:10.1177/0022009413481830. JSTOR 23488421. S2CID 159846046. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
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