Ghosts
Ghosts
Posted 11:31pm (Mla time) Feb 22, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
HAMPTON Sides, author of "Ghost Soldiers," gives the movie version of his book a pat on the back. The movie is "The Great Raid," which stars Benjamin Bratt and our very own Cesar Montano. It tells of the daring rescue of American prisoners held by the Japanese in Cabanatuan during World War II. This happened at a time when the Japanese were being pushed back and had taken to executing their prisoners en masse. In all, some 500 Americans were saved by the raid, which involved 121 US Rangers and 80 Filipino guerrillas.
Sides was here a couple of weeks ago to speak at the University of Sto. Tomas during the commemoration of the end of Word War II. UST itself was one big internment camp during the Japanese Occupation. Talking about the movie that was based on his book, Sides said he was glad it hewed closely to the spirit of the original, which wasn't just to give tremendous credit to the Filipinos but to show the horrors of war. He said he was glad the movie didn't have the triumphalist air of many Hollywood World War II movies and the jingoistic one of much of those that sprouted after 9/11. "I was skeptical at first. But they did a good job. They showed that the Filipino guerrillas played a big role. And although the Cabanatuan mission was successful, the backside was dark. Why do we have wars? We come to the realization that war is a terrible thing."
It's a very good reminder from someone who, if he hasn't seen the horrors of war up close and personal, has at least done so up close by way of research. And a most timely one it is, given the parallel the Filipino audience in particular might draw between American and Filipino forces fighting side by side against the fascistic Japanese and American and Filipino forces fighting side by side against the terroristic Abu Sayyaf.
War is hell, not an action movie. In an action movie, one side is good and the other bad, one side is kind and the other cruel. In real life, it's not always so clear who's right or wrong, who's murderous and who's not. In an action movie, the faceless extras are machine-gunned en masse and get ketchup on their shirts. In real life, men, women and children get massacred and die in a huddle.
There is the other side of war, something that's glossed over, or rendered invisible, in action movies and jingoistic rhetoric. The other side of the Pacific War I've just caught glimpses of. The atrocities the Japanese wreaked on their Asian neighbors were real, as Alice Villadolid reminded us in her four-part series a couple of weeks ago to mark the 60th anniversary of the "Liberation of Manila." The retreating Japanese soldiers went on a killing spree, bayoneting everyone in sight or herding them into churches and burning them alive. But the atrocities inflicted on the Japanese by their enemies, as well indeed as on the Japanese people by their own government, were just as real. The Ground Zero sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki-they are not called that, but they deserve the name more-are painful and eternal reminders of that.
But numbers numb the mind, they do not prick it. The one image I've gotten about the madness of war from the Japanese viewpoint has been supplied by Haruki Murakami's magnificent "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." The father of one of the characters there is a veterinarian who has been assigned to supervise a zoo in Manchuria. As the Chinese troops are driving them out toward the end of the war, he gets an order from his superiors to kill the animals. They can no longer feed them, and turning loose the tigers and other dangerous animals, which are famished and rattling their cages, poses a menace to the community.
Several pages follow about the difficulty and absurdity of massacring an entire zoo population. Particularly as carried out by a platoon that is trying to conserve bullets (the occupation force has run out of ammo, too). The result is both hilarious and poignant. Which is what war is all about, the hilarity issuing from unbelievable horror. People have been known to laugh their heads off hysterically at the height of torture.
There is yet one other image that has driven to me the horror of World War II from Japanese eyes, and that is Studio Ghibli's "The Grave of the Fireflies." Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest war movies ever made." And the astounding thing about it is that it is an anime! One other critic added to Ebert's assessment, "live or animation."
Directed by Isao Takahata, "Grave" tells the story of a brother and sister who are orphaned during the War. The father is off fighting somewhere in the Pacific and the mother dies in an air raid. They live with a relative for a while, but run away after being routinely oppressed. They live in the outskirts of the city, in a cave, foraging for food variously from wild crops and the kindness of farmers. Both wild crops and the kindness of farmers dry up (it's everything the farmers can do to feed themselves), and the kids comfort themselves by telling stories while waiting for the war to end and their father to come home. The girl never sees the end of the war. She dies of hunger despite the frenzied effort of her older brother to find precious food and medicine.
Talk of poignant, this one pierces you in the heart with an ice pick.
Sides does well to remind us of what the Greek tragedians, notably Euripides, have been saying all this time but which we keep forgetting each time a rabble-rouser takes to the stage to talk of the glory to come from smiting the enemy. None of this is to say that we may not fight back when oppressed or defend ourselves when attacked. All of it is to say that war is a last resort, not a first option.
Pacifism is not soft-minded, it is tough-minded. You cannot find anything softer than putty than the brain of a toughie, or a warmonger.
Posted 11:31pm (Mla time) Feb 22, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 23, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
HAMPTON Sides, author of "Ghost Soldiers," gives the movie version of his book a pat on the back. The movie is "The Great Raid," which stars Benjamin Bratt and our very own Cesar Montano. It tells of the daring rescue of American prisoners held by the Japanese in Cabanatuan during World War II. This happened at a time when the Japanese were being pushed back and had taken to executing their prisoners en masse. In all, some 500 Americans were saved by the raid, which involved 121 US Rangers and 80 Filipino guerrillas.
Sides was here a couple of weeks ago to speak at the University of Sto. Tomas during the commemoration of the end of Word War II. UST itself was one big internment camp during the Japanese Occupation. Talking about the movie that was based on his book, Sides said he was glad it hewed closely to the spirit of the original, which wasn't just to give tremendous credit to the Filipinos but to show the horrors of war. He said he was glad the movie didn't have the triumphalist air of many Hollywood World War II movies and the jingoistic one of much of those that sprouted after 9/11. "I was skeptical at first. But they did a good job. They showed that the Filipino guerrillas played a big role. And although the Cabanatuan mission was successful, the backside was dark. Why do we have wars? We come to the realization that war is a terrible thing."
It's a very good reminder from someone who, if he hasn't seen the horrors of war up close and personal, has at least done so up close by way of research. And a most timely one it is, given the parallel the Filipino audience in particular might draw between American and Filipino forces fighting side by side against the fascistic Japanese and American and Filipino forces fighting side by side against the terroristic Abu Sayyaf.
War is hell, not an action movie. In an action movie, one side is good and the other bad, one side is kind and the other cruel. In real life, it's not always so clear who's right or wrong, who's murderous and who's not. In an action movie, the faceless extras are machine-gunned en masse and get ketchup on their shirts. In real life, men, women and children get massacred and die in a huddle.
There is the other side of war, something that's glossed over, or rendered invisible, in action movies and jingoistic rhetoric. The other side of the Pacific War I've just caught glimpses of. The atrocities the Japanese wreaked on their Asian neighbors were real, as Alice Villadolid reminded us in her four-part series a couple of weeks ago to mark the 60th anniversary of the "Liberation of Manila." The retreating Japanese soldiers went on a killing spree, bayoneting everyone in sight or herding them into churches and burning them alive. But the atrocities inflicted on the Japanese by their enemies, as well indeed as on the Japanese people by their own government, were just as real. The Ground Zero sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki-they are not called that, but they deserve the name more-are painful and eternal reminders of that.
But numbers numb the mind, they do not prick it. The one image I've gotten about the madness of war from the Japanese viewpoint has been supplied by Haruki Murakami's magnificent "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." The father of one of the characters there is a veterinarian who has been assigned to supervise a zoo in Manchuria. As the Chinese troops are driving them out toward the end of the war, he gets an order from his superiors to kill the animals. They can no longer feed them, and turning loose the tigers and other dangerous animals, which are famished and rattling their cages, poses a menace to the community.
Several pages follow about the difficulty and absurdity of massacring an entire zoo population. Particularly as carried out by a platoon that is trying to conserve bullets (the occupation force has run out of ammo, too). The result is both hilarious and poignant. Which is what war is all about, the hilarity issuing from unbelievable horror. People have been known to laugh their heads off hysterically at the height of torture.
There is yet one other image that has driven to me the horror of World War II from Japanese eyes, and that is Studio Ghibli's "The Grave of the Fireflies." Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest war movies ever made." And the astounding thing about it is that it is an anime! One other critic added to Ebert's assessment, "live or animation."
Directed by Isao Takahata, "Grave" tells the story of a brother and sister who are orphaned during the War. The father is off fighting somewhere in the Pacific and the mother dies in an air raid. They live with a relative for a while, but run away after being routinely oppressed. They live in the outskirts of the city, in a cave, foraging for food variously from wild crops and the kindness of farmers. Both wild crops and the kindness of farmers dry up (it's everything the farmers can do to feed themselves), and the kids comfort themselves by telling stories while waiting for the war to end and their father to come home. The girl never sees the end of the war. She dies of hunger despite the frenzied effort of her older brother to find precious food and medicine.
Talk of poignant, this one pierces you in the heart with an ice pick.
Sides does well to remind us of what the Greek tragedians, notably Euripides, have been saying all this time but which we keep forgetting each time a rabble-rouser takes to the stage to talk of the glory to come from smiting the enemy. None of this is to say that we may not fight back when oppressed or defend ourselves when attacked. All of it is to say that war is a last resort, not a first option.
Pacifism is not soft-minded, it is tough-minded. You cannot find anything softer than putty than the brain of a toughie, or a warmonger.
posted by Dante at 4:45 PM
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