Watching Eternal Zero for the first time in my uncle’s suburban home in the outskirts of Tokyo, I wasn’t sure how to feel. Physically sitting in a representation of everything the post-war economic boom generation strove for, watching a film that focused solely on the period that generation had been willed to forget, felt uncomfortable to my Western logic.

I was used to this dichotomy, experienced in dinner conversations casually seasoned with denunciations of the Chinese, and denials of the ‘Nanking Massacre’, which to many Western ears may be shocking, but to a Japanese adult is just what they were taught in school.

"The film [ends] with an acceptance of his fate, a concession that could be interpreted to glorify death for the nation and in turn glorify war itself"

Any conversation that seeks to tackle the war in relation to Japan is complex. It’s multi-faceted because it involves considering historical memory and how to navigate it. It involves discussing the post-war transition to democracy and the role of the government nowadays. It is true that Shinzo Abe seems well-liked. He’s a classic Japanese politician, but perhaps too classic. He represents the conservative stronghold that has mostly held power over the past five decades. He’s nationalistic, but plays it off as trying to restore a ‘Japanese identity’ of sorts, which supposedly in turn justifies his desire to restore Japan’s military capacity (something explicitly not allowed by the American-written post-war constitution).

He’s also ‘just paying his respects’ when he visits the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which does in fact enshrine war criminals alongside soldiers, a move he knows is inflammatory on all accounts. His attitude towards the war is hard to dissect: we have these provocative political gestures on one hand, but on the other he is also the first prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor and pay his respects. So, really, who knows where he stands? But he is also a man who said he was moved by this film – just like so many other Japanese viewers.  

This was not the consensus. Despite being one of the top 10 grossing films in Japan, ever, Eternal Zero received very mixed reviews. Some critics claimed it glorified war, whereas others perceived it to strengthen the Japanese resolve to perpetuate world peace. This spectrum of opinions stems from the subject matter of the film: Kamikaze pilots. These soldiers are controversial figures even in Western media; we all know who they are, but we struggle to comprehend their desire to die deliberately for their emperor.

The film’s protagonist starts out with a determination to survive till the end of the war – an attitude that sets him at odds with his comrades, and weakens him in the eyes of his superiors – but ends the film with an acceptance of his fate, a concession that could be interpreted to glorify death for the nation and in turn glorify war itself. Unfortunately for the harsh critics of the film, it is solely by personal interpretation that you would reach this conclusion, seeing as the film never expressly explains his decision to fulfil his role as a kamikaze pilot.

However, Naoki Hyakuta, the author of the book on which the film is based and also a highly public figure, fuels the debate with his outright denials of wartime atrocities. Especially considering his tenure of the position of Governor of NHK (the Japanese equivalent of the BBC), as well as being a close friend of Abe’s: it does suggest a pro-war bias.

Close-Up: Frank

To some extent the fact that popular media is even seeking to open the discussion about the war is positive progression. The Japanese handling of national memory and historical narrative has always been a difficult arena to negotiate, and given that so many public figures still to this day refuse to acknowledge or apologise for the atrocities of the war shows there is still a long way to go. But I do suppose that watching the film, with my uncle in his Tokyo home, did in some ways move me, because I suddenly saw the war from the perspective my mother had always seen it