Category Archives: Russia

Movie: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors — Tini zabutykh predkiv (1964)

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Once, this movie was celebrated as a masterpiece and won many awards in the West; but this movie has already slipped into obscurity, and it has become difficult to obtain it on DVD. It seems that movie director Sergei Parajanov—once regarded as an internationally renowned maestro—has also slipped into obscurity. In this movie, he used techniques that were novel for the time and astonished viewers, similar to his close friend director Andrei Tarkovsky (Ivan’s Childhood). However, because the next generation of directors in many countries imitated and often used these new techniques, it is very difficult today to see and appreciate the newness; also, the reputation of this movie within the Soviet Union was bad due to Sergei Parajanov being one of the victims who were buried under the political oppression of the Soviet Union administration.

Sergei Parajanov was born in 1924 in Georgia (in Japan, people tend to call it Grúziya in the Russian style, but the Georgian government demanded that it be internationally called Georgia in the English style), and studied cinematography at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. He is ethnically Armenian.

Georgia is on the south side of the Caucasus Mountains, which connects the Black and Caspian Seas, and it has Russia to the north, Turkey to the south, and Armenia and Azerbaijan as neighbors. Since ancient times, this area was an important traffic route used by many ethnicities, and it was the focus of Russia’s plans for southern expansion; under the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk, the eastern part of Georgia became a protectorate of Russia. Georgia, as a pious Greek Orthodox Church nation, needed Russia’s support in order to prevent Islam nations—such as Turkey and Persia, who feared Russia moving south—from invading Georgia. In other words, Georgia decided that it was necessary to rely on Russia in order to protect itself from the threat of Muslim Persia and Turkey—the Islamic power that coexisted in the Caucasus area. In 1801, Georgia—caught up in internal turmoil—was annexed into Russia. Later, in 1832, aristocrats in Georgia developed a plan to overturn Russian control, but it was soon suppressed by Russia. When the Russian Revolution broke out, Georgia declared independence from Russia, but the Soviet Union suppressed this, and Georgia became a part of the Soviet Union. Partly because Stalin was from Georgia, Georgia—until it declared its independence in 1991—was relatively obedient to the central government of the Soviet Union, and was not considered to be a problem child by the Soviet Union.

Sergei Parajanov married a Ukrainian woman and continued artistic activities in Ukraine, but gradually his avant-garde artistic style became considered to be anti-establishment, and he began to be oppressed by the Soviet Union socialist administration. In the Soviet Union, only movies that used a socialist and realistic style and praised socialism were allowed; avant-garde and surrealist movies, like those of Sergei Parajanov, were considered degenerate and dangerous movies that were hiding something. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was showered with high praises all over the world, but it was unpopular in the Soviet Union. Sergei Parjanov was increasingly oppressed by government authorities, and in 1974, he was imprisoned for the crime of homosexuality. Regarding his imprisonment, European directors including Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Goddard organized a protest campaign; Sergei Parajanov was released three years later, but even after that, he received relentless oppression from Soviet Union authorities, so it became impossible to make a movie. Due to this cruel situation, he later immigrated to Armenia.

Ukrainian Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky wrote the original Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky was born in 1864 in Ukraine—which was under Russian control at that time—and was part of a literature movement that focused on traditional Ukrainian culture, which was under severe oppression by the Russian Empire in those days. West Ukraine was under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time; since more Ukrainian cultural activity was allowed there than in Russia-controlled areas, he published his books in West Ukraine. Director Sergei Parajanov is not Ukrainian, but perhaps he felt a sort of commonness with Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky who was involved in the Ukrainian literature revival movement.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is the Ukrainian version of the story of Romeo and Juliet, where a young boy from a mountain tribe in West Ukraine falls in love with the daughter of the rival family that killed his own parents. The movie depicts in vivid color the life of people who are Greek Orthodox—a religion that was strictly prohibited by the Soviet Union in those days; this movie suggests that religion was the standard for living, and that people lived in fear of supernatural phenomenon such as ghosts. The depiction of religion alone appears to be enough to rub socialist authorities—who banned all religions (but adhered religiously to Marxism)—the wrong way. Moreover, this movie goes beyond any possible acceptable range by depicting Ukrainians—who were hated by Soviet authorities for having been a threat to Russia, such as with the revolt of the Cossack soldiers, and attempting independence when the Soviet Union was established.

The Duchy of Kiev existed in the area of current Ukraine, but it was destroyed in the 13th century by the Mongolian Empire. After the Mongolian Empire, this area belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the north and the Kingdom of Poland to the west, but gradually a semi-military community called Cossacks developed, and they began to resist control by foreign powers. However, due to the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, Ukraine was divided; West Ukraine was placed under the control of Poland—later the Austro-Hungarian Empire—and East Ukraine was placed under the control of Russia. Taking advantage of the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires in World War I, Ukrainians living in West Ukraine declared their independence as the West Ukrainian People’s Republic; Poland opposed this, and thus the Polish-Ukrainian War began. The Polish side was supported by France, Britain, Romania, and Hungary. Against this, West Ukraine appealed for support from the Ukrainian People’s Republic to the east. However, the Ukrainian People’s Republic government could not dispatch reinforcements since they were fighting against the Soviet Red Army; in the end, West Ukraine was occupied by Poland, and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic collapsed.

The Ukrainian People’s Republic to the east was put under Soviet Union control; the Soviet Union led by Lenin and Stalin adopted hostile policies toward Ukraine. One reason was that Ukraine was a fertile agricultural nation, so the socialist policy that was based on factory workers was not applicable to the economic system of Ukraine. Because the socialist policies that did not fit Ukraine’s reality were enforced, the agriculture of Ukraine suffered devastating damage, and a great many people died of famine. Stalin’s Great Purge also started from Ukraine.

In World War II, Ukraine—due to its close proximity to Germany—suffered enormous damage, and among the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the greatest victim of World War II. It is said that 1 in 5 Ukrainians died in the war. People’s stance during the war was also complicated in this area; there were some people who supported the Soviet Union side, while other people supported the German side. Also, there were people who joined the anti-Soviet, anti-German Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and fought for Ukraine’s independence. Ukraine, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, became a new independent nation in 1991, but Ukraine and Russia are still tied together in many ways. The government is also torn between the anti-Russia faction and the pro-Russia faction.

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Movie: Battleship Potemkin — Bronenosets Po’tyomkin (1925)

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Battleship Potemkin is a propaganda movie that depicts the sailor revolt in 1905 during the times of the Russian Empire, and it was made in 1925 under the Soviet Union administration to show the first step of the glorious Communist Revolution. I was dumbfounded by the excessive propaganda, but even more dumbfounded by the genius of the director Sergei Eisenstein for making such an original movie in 1925.

The Russian Empire wanted an ice-free harbor, and so they consistently implemented policies to expand south; due to their victory in the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, they acquired power over the Balkan Peninsula. Chancellor Bismarck of the German Empire, who was wary of Russian expansion, organized a meeting that assembled representatives of the Great Powers in Berlin, and succeeded in restraining Russia’s power. With this, Russia abandoned their policy to go south of the Balkan Peninsula, and turned their eyes towards invading into the Far East, which resulted in the Russo-Japanese War that occurred in 1904. Great Britain, with investments in Asia, feared the advancement of Russia into Asia, and gave financial and military support to Japan based on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but France, who had bitter thoughts towards Germany and Britain, formed the Franco-Russian Alliance in opposition. Japan requested that United States President Theodore Roosevelt—who was friendly with Japan in those days—do peace negotiations, but Russia decided to deploy their Baltic Fleet—a fleet based in the Baltic Sea that Russia claimed to be unrivaled in those days—and they refused Roosevelt’s peace negotiations.

The Baltic Fleet went around the coast of the African continent for seven months to get to Japan. They anticipated the refusal of food and fuel provisions from British and German colonies in Africa, but the support from French territories that they were relying on did not go as well as expected, and they had to continue on a very difficult voyage. The truth was that Britain and France established their Entente Cordiale (“cordial agreement”) on April 8, 1904, immediately after the Russo-Japanese War broke out. On May 27, 1905, the Baltic Fleet met and engaged in battle with the Combined Fleet of the Japanese navy in the Sea of Japan, and lost most of their ships in a naval battle; they received the devastating blow of having their Commander-in-Chief taken prisoner, and the naval battle ended with a complete landslide victory for the Japanese fleet. Because around the same time on June 14, a sailors’ mutiny erupted on the battleship Potemkin stationed on the Black Sea, it became necessary for Russia to quickly terminate the Russo-Japanese War.

Before the Russo-Turkish War, Russia supported Greece’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence that broke out in 1821; Russia then went to war without any allies against Turkey and gained victory. Due to the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, the coastal zones of the Black Sea were surrendered from Turkey, and Russian ships were able to pass through the Bosphorus/Dardanelles strait freely. Britain and France, in fear of Russia’s expansion south, called the Convention of London in 1840, and due to the London Straits Convention in 1841, the allowance of Russian ships through the Bosphorus/Dardanelles strait was repealed. In other words, Russian warships were internationally banned from entering the Mediterranean Sea through the strait. Therefore, the Russian fleet in the Black Sea wasn’t able to dispatch troops during the Russo-Japanese War. Potemkin was part of the Black Sea Fleet.

In this movie, an armed uprising by the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin occurs; the rebelling sailors execute an officer and declare a revolution, turning towards the Ukrainian harbor city Odessa. The massacre of Odessa citizens by Russian government troops occurs because the people of Odessa welcomed Potemkin; the Russian fleet is dispatched in order to suppress Potemkin. The movie paints the rebellion as the glorious beginning of the Revolution by depicting the sailors of the government fleet calling the Potemkin sailors brothers with a feeling of solidarity. However, how much of reality is reflected in this movie?

First, the highly praised and famous scene in movie history of the massacre on the stairs in Odessa seems to not be a historical fact. The stairs with a strange design seen in the movie do exist in Odessa, though. If you stand at the top of the stairs and look down towards the bottom, you can only see the landings and not the stairs. However, if you stand at the bottom of the stairs and look up, you only see stairs, and don’t see the landings. When looking up at the stairs from the sea, the stairs look longer than they actually are; when looking down the stairs while on land, the stairs appear to be shorter than they actually are. Since the massacre depicted on these stairs in Odessa became a classic scene, it feels as if it is a historical fact. In truth, Odessa’s city government was against the activities of Potemkin, and did not allow the anchorage of Potemkin.

It is true that the fleet sent to suppress Potemkin did not fire at the Potemkin. Because many sailors in the suppressing fleet sympathized with the revolt of the Potemkin, Vice Admiral Krieger, who was appointed as the acting commander, felt that if he gave the order to fire at the Potemkin, not only was his life was in danger, but his whole fleet might join Potemkin’s rebellion; thus, he passed the Potemkin without doing anything. The sailors of the suppression fleet, despite being forbidden to by their superior officers, went up to the deck to cheer and greet the sailors on the Potemkin when they approached. Furthermore, the sailors of another armored warship Georgii Pobedonosets arrested their own superior officers and joined the Potemkin uprising. On another battleship, Sinop, a faction in favor of joining Potemkin argued with a faction against it; the latter won, and they did not join Potemkin.

What happened to the sailors of the Potemkin mutiny afterwards?

On the armored warship Georgii Pobedonosets that had joined Potemkin, the sailors immediately split into factions. The sailors who regretted thoughtlessly aligning with the mutiny released the captain and officers, and the next day, handed over 68 of the mutiny leaders. The Potemkin, refused anchorage by Odessa, arrived at Constanta, Romania, but the Romanian government refused to provide the necessary supplies to the Potemkin. The Potemkin sailors surrendered to Romania, and the Romanian government returned the battleship Potemkin to the Russian government. Most sailors chose to take refuge in Romania as political offenders, and remained in Romania until a communist administration was established in Russia in 1917 by means of the Russian Revolution. Also, some sailors planned to escape abroad from Romania. Some escaped to South America, such as to Argentina, while others crossed to Western Europe via Turkey.

In the movie scene of the Odessa citizens’ antigovernment demonstration, the citizens shout, “Beat the executioner, tyranny, and Jews!!”; there is even a scene of a Jew—who was trying to calm down demonstrators by saying, “Mothers and brothers! Let there not be differences or hostility among us!”—being mobbed. The Jew is depicted looking rich and having a bad character. Considering that Sergei Eisenstein, who made this movie, was Jewish, I was really surprised, but this may have been the feelings of Russians towards Jews in those days.

Due to the huge success of Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein was invited to Hollywood, and lived in America starting from 1930; he became close friends with Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin, but his ideas were not used by moviemakers in Hollywood, and in the end, he returned to the Soviet Union without any visible achievement. What on earth did he do in America, I wonder.

When Sergei Eisenstein returned to his home country, Stalin’s Great Purge had started, and it was the time when the Purge extended to artists. Sergei Eisenstein made movies rich in artistic taste, which did not completely comply with socialist realism, and he also stayed in America for a long time and had many American friends; because of this, he was in a situation where he could be suspected of the crime of being a spy. However, he seems to have gotten through the Purge safely, but somehow his boss Boris Shumyatsky was purged and executed. A big part of this story still remains unclear.

After World War II, because they were close friends of Sergei Eisenstein, Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin were suspected during the “Red Scare,” which was carried out with the authority of Senator McCarthy. Walt Disney was granted innocence, but Charlie Chaplin was eventually deported.

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Movie: War and Peace (1956)

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Hollywood pulled out all the stops for this 1956 drama based on literary master Tolstoy’s long historical drama written from 1865 to 1869, which weaves the invasion of the Russian Empire by the French army led by Napoleon in 1812 as the warp, and 500 characters including three Russian aristocratic families as the weft.

Omitting as much as possible of the lengthy book of four volumes, the movie mainly depicts the love entanglement of three people—Count Bezukhov’s illegitimate child Pierre (Henry Fonda), his closest friend Prince Andrei (Mel Ferrer), and the daughter of the Count Rostov family Natasha (Audrey Hepburn)—but it is still more than three hours long, and boring to watch. The feel of old Hollywood exudes from the screen, and makes me wonder where Russia’s 19th century countryside has gone. However, I think what destroyed this movie was—sorry to her fans—Audrey Hepburn’s poor performance.

Audrey Hepburn was a bit too old to play Natasha—who is like a blossoming flower—but in order to exhibit cuteness, Audrey just kept dancing around and tried to talk cutely by using a high voice. In the original, Natasha meets Prince Andrei in the vast countryside of Russia, but in the movie, the two meet at a boring ball; Natasha, who is sulking because she has not been asked to dance, becomes ecstatic when Prince Andrei asks her to dance, and she even says she wants to marry Prince Andrei. After Prince Andrei leaves for the frontline, Natasha is easily seduced by Anatole—the older brother of Pierre’s wife Helene—and they make plans to elope. In the end, after losing both Prince Andrei and Anatole, Natasha quickly snags Pierre—“tee hee hee”—when he appears before her again, and then the movie ends. Because Henry Fonda is too handsome to play Pierre, the movie makes me wonder why Natasha would ignore this handsome Pierre when he was around. I hope that the original work actually has a more profound tone of, “Due to her youth, Natasha hasn’t yet realized her own charm, nor understands what is important in life. However, she discovers the meaning of life by overcoming the difficulties of war and helping people across social classes; she grows into a strong and beautiful woman; and she realizes the true nature of Pierre’s heart, which she hadn’t noticed before; thus a love sprouts.” Otherwise, why would Tolstoy’s original work remain as a timeless masterpiece? However, this Hollywood movie is unfortunately very superficial.

Digressing from the main subject, I once heard a male American student express that there are three actresses who symbolize the charms of women. According to him, the three actresses are Grace Kelly (beauty), Marilyn Monroe (sexiness), and Audrey Hepburn (cuteness); the other men listening to this strongly agreed. These three actresses are aptly of the same generation, and Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn are the same age; Marilyn Monroe is three years older than the other two. Other women of the same generation who are also synonymous with “beautiful woman” in those days include Elizabeth Taylor (three years younger than those two), the president’s wife Jacqueline Kennedy (the same age as those two!!!), and gorgeous Sophia Loren (five years younger than those two). If Elizabeth Taylor symbolizes a vulnerable heart, Jacqueline Kennedy power, and Sophia Loren vitality, perhaps these six sparkling women of the same generation express the charm of a woman from different angles.

I heard an interesting story regarding Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy. It seems that the two happened to attend the same dinner party. Wherever Grace Kelly went, she was sure to attract men, but that night, all the men crowded around Jackie, and no man was interested in Grace. Grace was so distraught that she hid in the bathroom and cried all night long. I even think part of the reason she decided to marry the Prince of Monaco was the memory of this upsetting dinner party.

That story was a digression. All six of these women have passed away except Sophia Loren. Although I digressed from the War and Peace movie, the era of these six women was when Hollywood was robustly thriving after World War II; this movie may be considered a flashy flower that bloomed as a result of those times.

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Movie: Ivan’s Childhood — Ivanovo detstvo (1962)

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This movie is director Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie adaptation of Russian author Vladimir Bogomolov’s short story Ivan. Ivan—a young boy who became an orphan after losing his whole family including his parents in the Eastern Front during World War II when he was 12 years old—joins the partisans out of his hatred for Germany, and he later participates in the Soviet Army as a reconnaissance soldier; in the end, he is executed by the Nazis, ending his short life. There isn’t a particularly dramatic story development, but the movie keeps making a clear contrast between the beautiful and poetic scenes that flashback to the young boy’s memories of the peaceful days, and the harsh reality of the war spreading in front of the boy.

This movie’s characteristic is the beauty of the objet d’art (art object). Neither actual battle scenes nor German soldiers appear, and war is only symbolically expressed with gunshots and lights, like toy fireworks. Every objet d’art—water, darkness, light, lamps, ruins, the swamp, the beach, the well, horses, white birch trees, birds, apples, etc—is placed effectively and sometimes in a surprising location; also, the movement of people is shot from unexpected angles.

When Stalin died in 1953, the people under Soviet Union control in those days finally gained peace of mind, and Western culture rapidly flowed into the Soviet Union; new theories on movies and art were introduced into universities, and this movie was made during the period when a new generation of movie directors was being brought up. Andrei Tarkovsky was one of the young men of this new post-war generation. It is said he fawned over America, to the point of being criticized for it; he was very interested in modern America and obsessed with jazz. Also, he enthusiastically studied the directors that were considered great by Western countries in those days such as Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, and Ingmar Bergman.

Rather than story and subject matter, this movie seems concerned with novel objet d’art and angles for filming; it seems that it was greatly influenced by La Nouvelle Vague (“the new wave”) swelling in France at that time. La Nouvelle Vague was a movie movement that happened in France in the 50s, and was led by French movie critics who bitterly criticized existing movie directors as being “dull,” and who enthusiastically declared, “We can make more interesting movies.” François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard were central figures.

In France, which was still scarred from the war in the 1950s and 60s, the youth tended to rebel strongly against adults and the establishment that caused the war. New movements were rising in many cultural areas, such as communism in politics, existentialism—led by Jean-Paul Sartre—followed by structuralism in the realm of philosophy, and La Nouvelle Vague within movies. The themes of these new movements included a feeling of decadence, eroticism, destructive acts, or nihilism without solutions. French culture heavily influenced Japan in the 60s, and a group called “Japan Nouvelle Vague” was even born in Japan, representative movie directors being Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, Shohei Imamura, Susumu Hani, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Yasuzo Masumura, and Koreyoshi Kurahara. They made movies with themes that had until then not often been the subject—such as juvenile delinquents, crimes, uninhibited sex, women living unnoticed in society, or bottom class people; also, they made movies that seemed to forsake the audience by being difficult to understand, and the audience began to consider them as “artists.”

La Nouvelle Vague movies were fresh in those times, but how are they when you watch them today? The novel techniques were imitated one after another by directors that followed after, and since everyone uses these methods now, viewers today may not understand why La Nouvelle Vague movies are considered revolutionary. Also, I wonder how many people today know the names Sartre and François Truffaut? Young Japanese people today might say about Sartre (pronounced “Sarutoru” in Japanese), “Sa-ru-to-ru, who? Is that someone who leaves (‘saru’) and takes things (‘toru’)?” But back in the 1960s, Sartre was so well-known in Japan that even a Japanese TV comedian referred to his name in a joke (“catch the monkey,” since “saru”=monkey, “toru”=catch) because the name “Sarutoru” sounds funny. I think it is certainly great that those of this movement pursued fresh methods and ideas 60 years ago, and since their methods are still kept alive in modern movies as mainstream methods, we could say that the core of La Nouvelle Vague is still alive today after all. Even now, we express the generalization, “French movies are difficult to understand, and they coldly cast aside the hearts of viewers.” Many modern French movies have a tone that is not La Nouvelle Vague, but there are also many French movies that are still based on the spirit of La Nouvelle Vague. We can say that La Nouvelle Vague was so influential that the basic tone of postwar French movies was defined by it.

As a result, this movie, Ivan’s Childhood, seems to raise interesting issues that Andrei Tarkovsky probably didn’t intend for.

Ivan is a war orphan and, due to the murder of his family, changes from an innocent young boy to nihilistic young boy. The only emotion he believes in is “hatred.” He is not scared anymore, no matter what happens. He hates German soldiers, but can’t trust any adult anymore—German or Russian—because it was adults that caused this war.

Ivan is killed in the war, but I wonder what would become of him if he survived? Maybe he would become an adult who hates the people in the generation above him. Germany and France, cruelly affected by the war, broke out in a violent anti-establishment movement in 1950s and 60s. Central to this movement was the generation who were children during the war, and this generation conveyed the feeling of hatred for the establishment to the generation born after the war. The change in the boy playing Ivan from being an innocent young boy with a happy smiling face to one with a dark face full of hatred—like an omen for the future—is very impressive in the movie.

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Movie: Divided We Fall — Musíme si pomáhat (2000)

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“United we stand, divided we fall” means that we can rise if we work together, but we will fail if we are divided. Usually people say “united we stand” as a call for solidarity, but this movie emphasizes the “divided we fall” side, saying we are defeated if we don’t work together. The Japanese translation of the title is totally different from the original. The person who came up with the Japanese title (“What a Wonderful World”) may have had the song “What a Wonderful World”—which opposed the Vietnam War and prayed for a peaceful world—in mind. This song sung by Louis Armstrong was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam as background music for the impressive scene of idyllic rural landscapes in Vietnam during the war.

This movie is a Czech movie, and depicts the suffering of the people living under Nazi control, while indirectly depicting criticism of the occupation by the Soviet Union that followed. The historic background and the theme in this movie are similar to those in Želary, which premiered in 2003 (not released in Japan). Both were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the protagonist is forced to do unusual things—having to marry some unknown person in order to protect one’s life under Nazi oppression (Želary) or having another man impregnate one’s wife (Divided We Fall). The undercurrent in both movies is the sentiment of, “Although Germany was terrible, the Soviet Union that came after was worse.”

The Czech Republic faced a similar fate as Poland of being a victim of the conflict between Nazis and the Soviet Union in World War II, but neither initially regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy. Since imperial Russia adopted the strategy to expand their southern front in order to gain access to a sea route, Great Britain, an advanced imperialist nation, was wary of Russia. Also, Russia was in conflict with the Austro-Hungarian Empire for hegemony over the Balkan Peninsula. However, the Czech Republic and Poland may have had the feeling of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” regarding the Soviet Union who was the enemy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that ruled over them. Russians, Czechs, and Poles are all part of the same ethnic group called Slavs.

There were many ethnic groups and nations in Europe, but in the end it was four counties—Britain, France, Italy, and Germany—that determined the fate of Europe until the end of World War II. These four countries were very wary of the Soviet Union that was created by the communist revolution. Because the Germans have fought with Russia for a long time over the Balkan Peninsula, and there were a great number of Slavs within German territories who often rebelled, Germany and the Soviet Union were naturally archenemies; because of this, England and France expected that Hitler would lead Germany against the Soviet Union, which would not be a bad situation for England and France to be in. However, Hitler was not a fool. On August 23, 1939 he entered a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union behind closed doors, and on the morning of September 1, the German army invaded Poland; on September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II began.

This movie is set in a small town under Nazi control and depicts those who cooperate with the Nazis, those who secretly become part of the partisan, and those who shelter Jews. It is a story of ordinary people in a small town where each neighbor is living with their own extraordinary and frightening conditions. It maintains a humorous tone throughout the whole movie, and it helps that there are no violent scenes, but it is still quite a strenuous situation.

Josef and Marie, who are not able to have children, unexpectedly come to shelter a Jew named David. David’s father was Josef’s boss. Josef discovers David escaping from a concentration camp and returning to town; Josef violates the law requiring him to report a Jew, and instead gives David a meal and helps plan his escape, though it fails. Since simply not reporting David’s existence is punishable by death, Josef and Marie decide to shelter David, with the resolution of, “If you eat poison, eat the whole plate.” Their friend Horst, having a German wife, is a Nazi collaborator. Reluctantly, Josef works for Horst and pretends to be a Nazi collaborator in order to avoid suspicion. Horst becomes troublesome by developing illicit feelings for Marie and suspecting Josef and Marie of hiding something, but when Nazis are to search Josef and Marie’s house, Horst uses his status to protect them.

The Nazis lose and the Soviet Army arrives. Josef is to be executed as a traitor by the partisans, but he tries to explain that he did what he did because he was sheltering a Jew. One partisan wants to meet David as proof, but it was actually that partisan who first saw David when he had come back to the town. That partisan had panicked and shouted to the Nazi army, “There’s a Jew!!!” but since the Nazi army did not hear him, David had been able to escape. When this partisan and David meet again, they do not mention this incident and just silently nod at each other. Horst is to be executed as a traitor, but Josef tries to save him by putting his own life in danger.

In this movie, there is a scene of a soldier of the Soviet Army complaining, “I don’t know who the heck to believe.” This was the first time the Soviet Army invaded a neighboring country in Europe. They didn’t know how to handle the situation. There were probably many soldiers that committed barbaric acts. Also, even though they were welcomed on the surface, there were still Nazi collaborators in the town. How could the Soviet Army find these people? Želary also depicts the village at first welcoming the Soviet Army that enters, a young soldier who starts raping women in the village, and the Soviet Army fighting with the villagers due to increasing uncertainty about who to trust. While the British-American army liberated Italy and France without problems on the Western Front, the Soviet Union’s liberation of Nazi territory was quite complicated on the Eastern Front.

Having asked David the Jew to impregnate Marie in order to protect themselves from the Nazis, the movie ends with Josef holding the baby that was safely born. This scene has the feeling of the Annunciation from the Bible. If you think about it, all of the countries that Germany fought in World War II were Christian countries, and Jesus who created Christianity was Jewish. Is the message, “please read the Bible again before starting a war”?

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Movie: Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears — Moskva slezam ne verit (1979)

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The title, “Moscow does not believe in tears,” seems to be a Russian saying meaning, “Even if you cry, nobody will help you.” This movie’s winning of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980 represented the bright hope many countries had for the Soviet Union just before the perestroika (“restructuring”) started in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Since it is a pretty good movie, and it depicts the lives of Russians realistically, it is understandable that this movie was warmly welcomed by viewers in Russia as well as other countries.

To state a simple summary, this movie is set in Moscow from the late 1950s until the late 1970s, and it depicts the lives of three working-class women from their twenties until their forties, who left the countryside to go to Moscow in search of their dreams, a job, and a husband. Katerina plans to succeed in life by means of education. On the way, she has a child with Rudolf, a cameraman at a television station, but she goes to college without relying on this man who doesn’t acknowledge her, and she succeeds in life as a factory director 20 years later. One of Katerina’s friends, Antonia, builds a steady life with her blue-collar worker husband. Her other friend, Lyudmila, aims to move up by marrying a rich man, and almost succeeds, but in the end, the marriage fails. Katerina meets and wants to develop a serious relationship with blue-collar worker Gosha, but Gosha learns that Katerina makes much more money than he does, and he leaves her. Old friends come together to support saddened Katerina, and work together to solve her issue. People who have worked with Russians often realize that many Russians are empathetic and full of camaraderie. This movie is a story about careers, the independence of women, and the lives of ordinary Soviet citizens, as well as a story of friendship. But the one thing this movie doesn’t have is criticism for the system.

In 2012—thirty years later—Prime Minister Putin was elected in the Russian presidential race with approximately 64% of votes; in his victory speech, Putin shed tears. This was a difficult campaign for him due to the rise of the anti-Putin movement in the middle class, but in the end, he turned out to be strong. Mr. Putin exclaimed in his speech, “We won an open, fair fight.” It seemed that tears were already on his cheek before he stepped onto the stage, but he wasn’t going to wipe them away during his speech. Afterwards, when asked, “What were those tears?” Putin responded, “Wind-stung eyes.”

The next day, anti-government demonstrators held up signs that read, “Moscow doesn’t believe in tears,” and protested the rigged election. For Russians, the existence of this movie is good because it represents optimism. However, what will the future hold for today’s Russia led by Putin? With the various unstable affairs in the current world, I think all people—not just Russians—hope that Russia grows into a strong and healthy democratic nation.

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Movie: Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

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Jewish author Sholem Aleichem was born in 1859 in Ukraine—which was a territory of the Russian Empire in those days—and wrote the short novel Tevye the Dairyman in 1894; in 1961, the musical Fiddler on the Roof based on his stories was performed on Broadway, and it became a big hit. In the 1971 film adaptation of this musical, Norman Jewison was the director and producer, and screenwriter Joseph Stein was in charge of the screenplay. It depicts the dairyman Tevye living in a village with his five daughters, the marriage of the older three daughters, and the family being chased from their hometown and immigrating to America due to persecution by the Russian Empire.

This movie has two major themes. First, as with the original novel, there is the change of times where a Jewish family that keeps tradition and lives peacefully in the community is forced to cope with changes when the daughters want to choose their marriage partners. When director Norman Jewison was later asked in an interview about the audience’s reaction to the movie (the interviewer had New York’s reaction in mind when they asked the question), he spoke of his experience in Japan. He said the reaction of the Japanese audience was frequently, “If you change the faces and remove the western clothes, what this movie depicts is simply modern Japan,” and regarding this, he said, “The Japanese audience was wonderful and had a true understanding of this movie; I think they deeply related to this movie.” He visited Japan in 1971, and even 20 years later, his favorable impression of the reaction by the Japanese audience still remains, and he talks about this favorable impression without being prompted.

I think the generation gap depicted in this movie was a big problem for Japan in the 1960s and 70s. Those days were a time of political change worldwide. However, the idea of, “marrying someone nearby with whom you were set up by a matchmaker”—which was until then the absolute marriage principle in Japan—started crumbling in the 70s. Up until then, matching pedigrees was the main thing that was considered for a spouse, but in times of rapid economic growth, “financial strength” began to be a new factor; additionally, a woman wished to marry a man she loved. In short, the parents may be at a loss if the three factors—pedigree, financial strength, and love—contradict; in regards to financial strength, “academic background” and “occupation” have to be considered, and in regards to love, “appearance” and “personality” come into play. Thus, parents no longer had a clear standard for what out of these factors was most important. Which out of, “very respectable education, but low income,” and “not a great academic background, but fairly rich person” to choose? Or which has more value between, “a new rich family without a good pedigree” and, “a child from a declined respectable family”? Choosing this in one situation and that in a different situation is the same thing that the father Tevye does in the movie. In the end, the eldest daughter marries the poor, young man whom she loves over the “the aged, rich man who worked as a butcher, a profession considered to be lowly,” that the matchmaker was pushing for. The second daughter yearns for the son of the clergyman—who has the top social status in the village—but in the end she falls in love with her tutor who educates her; when he gets deported to Siberia for participating in the revolutionary movement, she decides to follow him to Siberia. The third daughter elopes with a man who is not Jewish, and they get married in a Greek Orthodox Church. While Tevye can one way or another forgive the eldest and second daughters for their actions, he cannot forgive the third daughter for her marriage. In Japan, the confusing marriage conditions seem to be changing today into something simpler: “three highs” (high height, high education, and high income); but it wasn’t so simple in the social transition period 50 years ago. Also, in modern times, “matchmakers” have died out, and some in the younger generation may not know of them at all.

The other theme, which is added to both the movie and musical adaptations, is the persecution of Jews that happened in the last years of the Russian Empire. The persecution of Jews is called “pogrom” in Russian. The culprits of the pogrom cannot be pinpointed, but when dissatisfied people rioted and mutinied, Jews were at times collaterally attacked; also, when Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, an anti-Semitic pogrom occurred in Russia. Even in Battleship Potemkin, we can see the deep-rooted anti-Semitism in those days. Since the government of the Russian Empire suggested the expulsion of Jews as a solution to social dissatisfaction, the pogrom was fostered and intensified from 1903 to 1906, and Jews continued to seek refuge abroad. The author of the original story, Sholem Aleichem, also fled to America in 1905. Movie director Steven Spielberg’s ancestors were also Ukrainian Jews, but they immigrated to America before World War I started. Sholem Aleichem and Steven Spielberg’s ancestors probably immigrated to America around the same time for the same reason.

It is said that the title change from Tevye the Dairyman to the charming title Fiddler on the Roof when the story was adapted into a musical was inspired by a painting by the Jewish artist Chagall. When Roman Emperor Nero massacred Jews in the Roman Empire, among the people running about trying to escape, it is said that there was a man who played the violin on a roof; the title was inspired by Chagall’s depiction of this historical incident. Marc Chagall was born in Belarus, a Russian territory at the time (currently the northern neighbor of Ukraine), in 1887. He moved to France in 1922, but in 1941, he immigrated to America to avoid persecution by the Nazis. In the end, he returned to France after World War II, and he lived there as a Frenchman for the rest of his life. When Tevye the Dairyman was changed to Fiddler on the Roof, an additional societal element was added to the original.

Fiddler_chagallThe charm of this movie is naturally the beautiful music (such as the famous song, “Sunrise, Sunset”), as well as the cinematography that wonderfully recreates the Jewish community living in Russia in those times. It is said that the movie company that financed this movie requested it to be shot in America, but Norman Jewison chose to shoot in Yugoslavia, despite the strict budget, because it still had the atmosphere of those times. However, the greatest appeal is the way Tevye lives: despite the different value systems spreading due to the changing world situation, he keeps his traditional values while accepting changes. He lives in a community that helps each other, and is determined to protect his family—as a father and as a patriarch—against whatever happens. People of different religions were able to live peacefully together as a community in this area for hundreds of years, so the tradition of helping each other was developed based on a sense of security and then passed on. Unfortunately, the times that Tevye lived in were the times when this tradition was being destroyed by political changes. It is sad that this rich tradition in the hearts of good people was trampled in those times.

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Movie: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

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The Nuremberg Trials are a historical fact. However, this movie is a work of fiction that instead captures the feel of history by being based on actual facts; it can be said that it aims to depict the world after World War II from the point of view of the American conscience during the Cold War.

After the end of World War II, military leaders from the victorious nations—U.S.A., Britain, France, and Russia—gathered in Nuremberg in order to judge German war criminals. In the first half of the trial that began in 1945, the highest German leaders that led the war were one-sidedly judged and sentenced severely, but this movie is set in 1948, when the global situation surrounding the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials had subtly changed. For the U.S., Britain, and France, the threat was no longer Germany, but rather the Soviet Union. The Soviet Army occupied the eastern part of Germany, and it seemed to have its eyes set on occupying all of Germany. The U.S., Britain, and France concluded that, if the Soviet Union took control of Germany, all of Europe would bit by bit be taken over by communism; therefore, the interest of the U.S., Britain, and France became to protect Germany from the Soviet Union and the spread of communism, rather than punishing Germans.

The movie begins with a U.S. district court judge, Haywood (Spencer Tracy), being appointed as the Chief Trial Judge for one of the cases in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, and thus him going to Nuremberg. The reason he is appointed is that this case is judging some of Germany’s highest-class lawyers; in particular, since one of the defendants is Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster)—who is internationally known and acted as the Minister of Justice at the time of the Nazi’s defeat—no one wants to be the judge of the trial, so the duty is imposed on nameless, honest Judge Haywood.

Judge Haywood and the American officers staying in Nuremberg are impressed by the German traditions and the depth of the culture. After the war, even though they are poor, people drink delicious beer, enjoy a beautiful chorus in a bar, and appreciate piano and opera musical performances. People are kind, as if everyone is trying to prove that, “Germans are not beasts, like the world believes.” The officers, who came here as part of a victorious nation, make fun of themselves with, “We are like those Boy Scouts that walk around a beautiful palace with muddy shoes.” If there hadn’t been a war, I think Americans would have aspired for German culture. Judge Haywood, who is among these Americans, and prosecutor Colonel Lawson (Richard Widmark) are implicitly pressured from higher powers to quickly complete the trial, and to not give a severe sentence in order to win over Germany’s support.

The defendants’ lawyer Rolfe (Maximilian Schell, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor with this movie) refutes the claims presented by Colonel Lawson, one after another, with sharp logic. Because Colonel Lawson has personal experience liberating a Nazi concentration camp, he wants to make sure the accused lawyers, who approved the documents to have Jews rounded up, are held fully accountable. Enraged, Rolfe refutes with, “What about the war responsibility of the Soviet Union that had the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty with Germany, and illegally occupied and massacred under this treaty? What of the war responsibility for Great Britain’s Churchill, who agreed with Hitler in order to hold back communism?” With this, he voices the bitterness of Germans who silently endured the tyranny of the victorious nations in the Nuremberg Trials.

The greatest focus of the trial is whether Dr. Janning committed crimes under the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws were laws made by the Nazis, and defined relations between Jews and Germans as a crime. As a judge, Dr. Janning sentenced an old Jewish man to death on the charges of association with a young German girl Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland), and sentenced Irene to penal servitude for perjury when she denied the charges against the old man.

Judge Haywood, contrary to everyone’s prediction, passed a guilty verdict for all of the defendants, and he sentenced them all to life imprisonment. The basis of his sentence is that the prosecution proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the crimes were truly committed, and that, although the defendants did not commit the crimes directly, the crimes could not have occurred without the order of execution documents with the defendants’ names; thus, they are legal accomplices. Against Chief Judge Haywood’s judicial decision, the American judge serving as the trial’s deputy agrees with lawyer Rolfe’s argument, and refutes that the defendants were just abiding by the Nuremberg Laws—which were Germany’s national laws—and it would have been treason against the nation for the defendants to not abide by these laws.

There is also a pattern of conflicting interpretations between common law—preferred by Britain and America—and statutory law—preferred by Germany and France. Because Judge Haywood studied law in America that uses common law, he arrives at the guilty verdict based on the principles of case law that say precedent cases are the primary source of law for judgment, and that if there are previous similar trials, current verdicts are bound by precedent verdicts. Of course, since there is statutory law in Britain and America, when there is statutory law in the domain to judge, the stipulation is that statutory law takes preference over common law. Statutory laws have clear standards, and there are laws that have been used as the standards for a long period of time, such as the Napoleonic Code; however, what about the Nuremberg Laws? I think that the Nuremberg Laws suggest that a crazy leader can make crazy statutory laws. One can make a new law in America. However, that law must be approved by the majority in Congress, and it can be rejected by the Department of Justice if it opposes the Constitution.

Judge Haywood’s conviction disappoints both Germans and Americans. People believed that the defendants were only obeying the Nuremberg Laws, and it is the laws themselves that should be blamed. Also, there is disappointment because other trials happening around the same time generally found the defendants to be not guilty, and even if the defendants were found guilty, the sentence was very light. When Rolfe meets Judge Haywood face-to-face, he remarks, “In five years, the men you sentenced to life imprisonment will be free. In the near future, Americans may be placed in the situation where they are tried by the Soviet Army for injustice, so be warned,” and then leaves. Judge Haywood, when he meets with Dr. Janning in private upon Janning’s request, states, “You are guilty. The reason why is that you had already decided guilty before facing Irene Hoffman in court.” Also I think that, since Judge Haywood’s judicial decision becomes the precedent for future cases, he wanted to avoid his verdict from being cited to find future individuals who signed the death penalty for others as not guilty, as it could be if Judge Haywood had given an acquittal.

Marlene Dietrich performs as the widow of a general who was executed in the Nuremberg Trials. Her husband was found guilty in the Nuremberg Trials in what was like a lynching by the victorious nations immediately after the war, but the movie suggests the possibility that he may have been found innocent in a trial performed in1948. The widow tries to convey the spirits of German people to Judge Haywood, who she befriends, by telling him that both she and her husband hated Hitler, her husband had fought in order to protect the people of Germany, and most German people did not know of what the Nazis were doing.

It is said that Marlene Dietrich’s life was the inspiration for the character of the general’s wife. After Marlene, a German woman, came to America, she and Jewish director Sternberg became a top Hollywood combo. Adolf Hitler liked Marlene and requested that she return to Germany, but Marlene who hated the Nazis refused, and in 1939, she acquired American citizenship; because of this, the screening of Dietrich’s movies was prohibited in Germany. During World War II, she repeatedly visited the American soldier frontline in order to give moral support.

Actress Setsuko Hara, who visited America after the war, said the following when she was introduced to Marlene Dietrich. “She looked so beautiful in her movies, but when I actually met Dietrich, she was a candid and casual person; her face was plain, and I didn’t feel that bewitching beauty seen in her movies. I didn’t get the impression of a beautiful person at all…”

I wonder if Marlene Dietrich’s beauty comes from her outstanding professionalism and determination in life. When Dietrich performs in this movie as the young and beautiful widow, she is already 60 years old. Of course Setsuko Hara suffered immense hardships during the war (like other Japanese people), but her words seem to not have much thought for how much Marlene Dietrich had to overcome.

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Movie: Burnt by the Sun (1994)

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For the first two hours of this movie, the movie continues to depict a family chatting during summer in a village of artists in the countryside in the Soviet Union, as if we are gazing into the world of Chekov. While watching, we see that the father of the family is Commander Kotov, a legendary Red Army hero from the Russian Revolution, and it is likely that his young wife, because she lives in a villa with all her servants, is from a noble lineage and that the villa in this village of artists is her family’s villa. The Commander and his wife have a lovely daughter Nadia. Suddenly Dimitri—a young, handsome, aristocrat-looking artist—visits, and the wife’s family warmly welcomes him. Meanwhile, we learn that Dimitri is also noble in lineage, and that he and the wife were formerly lovers; everyone but the Commander starts conversing happily in French, and the Commander who doesn’t know French becomes slightly alienated. While viewers are wondering if this movie is story of a love triangle, in the last 20 minutes, it is revealed that Dimitri is actually part of the secret police, and that he came under Stalin’s orders to arrest Commander Kotov. Viewers must wonder why Dimitri, who should be part of the White Army because he is a noble, has the authority to arrest Red Army hero Commander Kotov.

Nikita Mikhalkov directed this movie, wrote the script, and starred in it, and the little girl who played the Commander’s daughter Nadia is Mikhalkov’s daughter. Nikita Mikhalkov’s older brother is Andrei Konchalovsky, who is close friends with Andrei Tarkovsky, the director of Ivan’s Childhood. Nikita Mikhalkov’s father, Sergei Mikhalkov, wrote the lyrics to the Soviet Union national anthem. At first, this song by Sergei Mikhalkov was an overly admiring song for Stalin, and it became the national anthem of the Soviet Union in 1944; due to criticism of Stalin, Sergei Mikhalkov modified the song lyrics in 1977, and later in 2001, he completely changed the lyrics for the sake of a new Russia.

Stalin’s Great Purge occurred in the 1930s; after Stalin’s death in 1953, formal criticism of Stalin was started by Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the cultish worship of Stalin was publically criticized. After Khrushchev was overthrown in 1964, the power of reformists temporarily weakened and fluctuated under the administration of Leonid Brezhnev —as seen with the Soviet Union’s armed suppression of the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring; but in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev resumed the criticisms of Stalin, and the honors of many victims were restored. Because this movie was made in 1994, some degree of freedom of speech must have been allowed, but the criticism against Stalin in this movie is very symbolic. The symbolism resembles that which is seen in modern Spanish movies that were made with extraordinarily beautiful images to the point of being awe-inspiring, and, out of fear of Franco’s oppression, relied on symbolism to convey criticism.

This movie also has beautiful images and mysterious symbolism that are awe-inspiring. Why does this movie keep explicit depiction of the terror of the purge to a minimum, and instead focus on fleeting beauty? I don’t know the answer since I don’t know Nikita Mikhalkov, but I feel like Nikita Mikhalkov is not a political person. For him, beautiful things—such as a beautiful heart—are most important, and he hates violence disguised as a revolution and murders under the name of the Purge because they are grotesque and not beautiful. However, if his delicate heart were to be caught up in something like politics, I don’t think it is his nature to handle it skillfully. In order to understand him more easily, I thought about Akira Kurosawa, whom Mikhalkov always considered, “a close friend, and the most important kindred spirit.” If Kurosawa made a movie about Stalin’s Great Purge, what would it be like? My answer is that Kurosawa wouldn’t make such a movie, even if he knew the truth of Stalin’s Great Purge. If hypothetically he did make such a movie, though, the movie would be very symbolic. I can understand why this movie is extremely symbolic when I think about it this way.

However, Nikita Mikhalkov is a man who expresses his feelings honestly. He supported Serbs—who were one-sidedly judged as criminals in the Bosnian War and thought of as international villains—by stating, “Don’t lose your identity as Serbs,” and supported Serbia’s policy regarding Kosovo. Also, he made clear his support for the leadership of Vladimir Putin. It seems like he is the type of person who acknowledges his feelings honestly regardless of what other people think. Based on what he has said, his political conviction might be, “Personally, I don’t recognize any government since 1917 that got their political power with violence and bloodshed as being legitimate.” Therefore, Burnt by the Sun may be dedicated to the victims who were burnt by the “fake sun” called the Revolution. People were one day unexpectedly taken away from their homes without any warning, and their family members never learned of their fate. Other people were humiliated in front of the general public in a false open court, and then later executed. Others were arrested and murdered even though they had nothing to do with politics. I think this movie is a requiem by Nikita Mikhalkov for these people.

The Great Purge was large-scale political oppression directed towards the faction that opposed the Soviet Union’s supreme leader, Joseph Stalin, in the 1930s. As a warning, anyone who was considered to be against Stalin was forced to confess to crimes such as being a spy in trial and was given a death sentence; the targets were not only core politicians, but also common party members and the public. The objectives were to kill Stalin’s political opponents and to turn the public’s dissatisfaction regarding the slow advancement in the economy into hatred for traitors. In the end, the Purge even targeted heroes of the Red Army who contributed to the success of the Revolution, respected artists, and communists who came to the Soviet Union seeking refuge.

The reasons that the Great Purge finally ended in late 1938 were that the function of the government was hindered due to the massacre of many capable people, and that, since the Nazi threat had become a reality, the government was able to turn the dissatisfaction of the people into hatred towards the Nazis. Near the end of 1938, Stalin criticized the NKVD, the secret police organization that had until then been central to the Great Purge, and oppressed them. Ironically, the officials of the secret police, who had chased so many people to their death, were killed one after another, and it is said that few people from the NKVD were able to survive the Stalin period.

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Movie: Katyń (2007)

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If I were to be asked right now to choose only one movie among the movies I’ve seen that is the most worthwhile, I would choose the Polish movie Katyń without hesitation. It is quite a high quality movie and this movie offers information that I may never have known if I hadn’t watched it. I am grateful for this movie from the bottom of my heart.

Sandwiched between Russia on the east side and Germany on the west, Poland has tragically been the victim of the two countries’ power struggles throughout history. In September of 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II, and, utilizing this chaos, the Soviet Army invaded Poland from the east. While this was going on, the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty was covertly signed and Poland was occupied and divided by Germany and the Soviet Army. Poles being pursued by from the German army from the west and Poles being pursued by the Soviet Army from the east encountered each other near the Bug River in eastern Poland. Those escaping from the Soviet Army told the Poles who escaped from Germany that it was dangerous and to head back west, while those escaping from the German army said the opposite. At that moment, trapped between two armies, each individual had to decide their fate.

The Polish government escaped to London and formed a Polish government-in-exile. Polish soldiers immediately complied with the orders of both armies, honorably and peacefully surrendering to the German and Soviet armies. The German army, in accordance to international law, released their Polish soldiers, but the Soviet Army did not. Katyń depicts the fates that followed the Polish soldiers that surrendered to the Soviet Army.

After the Soviet-German War broke out in 1941, the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union formed a treaty with an anti-German interest, and the Soviet Union was supposed to release all of their Polish prisoners and organize a Polish unit to attack the Nazis. However, more than 90% of the soldiers that were prisoners were unaccounted for; when the Polish government-in-exile in London pursued the Soviet Union to release all of the Polish soldiers, the Soviet Union responded that there was delay due to office work and transportation.

However, the German army violated the non-aggression treaty and invaded Soviet Union territory in April 1943; near the Katyn forest, former Soviet Union territory, they discovered the dead bodies of nearly twenty thousand Polish soldiers. Germany widely broadcasted this crime committed by the Soviet Army in 1940. After Germany was defeated and World War II ended in 1945, Poland was put under Soviet Union control as a satellite country of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union argued that, in fact, the Katyn forest massacre was an act of the German army and they carried out a grand anti-Nazi campaign; afterwards, it became taboo for Poles under Soviet Union control to mention the truth of the event.

This movie depicts the tragedy of the few families of the Katyn massacre victims that resisted the occupying Soviet Union by trying to reveal the truth of the event—after the Soviet rule started, most Poles obeyed the Soviet Union because of their hatred of Nazi Germany and for the sake of their personal safety.

Director Andrzej Wajda’s father was killed in the Katyn forest massacre. He gained international fame with works such as Kanał, Ashes and Diamonds, and Man of Marble, but because of his anti-Soviet stance, he was oppressed by the government of Poland. For over 50 long years, he had a plan to make a movie of the Katyn forest massacre, but it was impossible before the collapse of the Berlin Wall; he was already 80 years old when he was finally able to make the movie in 2007. I felt through this movie his determination of, “I can’t die until I convey what happened in the Katyn forest.” We must remember the following three points from this movie.

One, the crime. War is an abnormal, extreme situation where people kill each other, but there are universal rules in it. First, civilians must never be killed intentionally. And even soldiers must be treated humanely once they have surrendered. However, under the orders of Stalin, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in charge of prisoner accommodations interrogated each Polish soldier, and any soldier that was thought to have even a trace of anti-communist belief was killed mercilessly.

Two, the lie. After Germany discovered the dead bodies near the Katyn forest, Geneva’s International Committee of the Red Cross was asked to conduct a neutral investigation, but, faced with resistance from the Soviet Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross abandoned dispatching the commission. On April 24, 1943, the Soviet Union demanded that the Polish government-in-exile, in alliance with the Soviet Union at the time, announce, “The Katyn massacre was a German scheme.” But the Polish government-in-exile refused and, in response, the Soviet Union cut off their alliance with the government-in-exile. Believing that support from the Soviet Union on the side of the Allies was needed to win World War II, direct criticism of the Soviet Union was not permitted. In 1944, American President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Navy Commander George Earle as a secret agent to gather information on the Katyn forest massacre. Earle collected information by contacting Bulgaria and Romania who were sided with the Axis and came to think that the Katyn forest massacre was an act of the Soviet Union, but Roosevelt rejected this conclusion and ordered for Earle’s report to be suppressed. Earle requested permission to release his investigation, but Roosevelt sent him a written order prohibiting him. Earle was dismissed from these duties after that and he was demoted to duties concerning Samoa. Supported by circumstances from ally countries like this, the Soviet Union was allowed to maintain the lie that Nazi Germany was responsible for the massacre for over 50 years.

Finally, I want to emphasize the arrogance of a nation that wins in war.

The crimes of Nazi Germany were judged in the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. The Soviet Union took advantage of the opportunity as a victor to accuse particular Germans as the masterminds of the Katyn forest massacre, but America and the United Kingdom drew the line at this and refused the accusation of the Soviet Union. After that, an argument on the responsibility of this event continued in both the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc, but nobody in Poland was permitted to investigate the truth out of fear of the Soviet Union which controlled Poland then. This situation of not asking for the truth continued until the communist regime collapsed in Poland in 1989 and the young generation knew nothing of the Katyn forest massacre.

After the Soviet Union became less oppressive in 1989, the human rights of the victims of the Katyn forest massacre were finally recognized. In 1989, scholars in the Soviet Union disclosed that Stalin gave the order for the killings and Beria, the chief of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, signed the decree for the Katyn forest massacre. In 1990, Gorbachev admitted the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs involvement in the killing of Polish people including in Mednoe and Pyatikhatki, where burial sites like Katyn were found. After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1992, the Russian government finally released the official documents on the Katyn forest massacre, publicly revealing for the first time in over 50 years the lie that the Soviet Union had maintained.

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