Time doesn't heal all wounds

 We spoke in class about how the family has a tendency to let us down. In a post-war Tokyo, chasing domestic bliss is a pipedream. Since we began our study of this film, I have been thinking a lot about generational trauma. In a social setting as intimate as family, inflicting harm seems inevitable. The characters at once move on but remain petrified by the experiences of old, living as prisoners to time. Modernity shepherds all our characters forward, but their existence is governed by history.

Maybe, this is why Noriko affords Tomi and Shukishi warmth when their biological children cannot be bothered. She has no memory of Shukishi the alcoholic, but rather Shukishi the father-in-law. 

Much like Shoji’s picture lingers in the background of shots in Noriko’s apartment, WW2’s legacy lingers in the memory of our characters. Shoji’s death marks the permanence of the war. Even in present-day Tokyo, the causalities are an enduring reality. Thousands of family's mourn for their dead sons who are never to return from war.

Take Noriko and Shukishi’s last exchange, for example. He tells her to just forget about Shoji. Following this, she admits days pass without a thought of him, yet her expression of remorse tells another story. Noriko lives with one foot in the past and another in the future. The world is telling Noriko to move on, but she resides in a one-room mausoleum of her marriage. Her concrete apartment shows that, in some ways, Noriko is entombed with  Shoji. She says to Shukishi that she is awaiting something but cannot name what that something is. 

Noriko is traumatized by the loss of her husband to the extent that it petrifies her. She feels selfish, but toward whom? Her husband has been dead for years. There is no one who she's actively hurting by not thinking of Shoji.  

 The ethical question arises: how do we honor the traumas history inflicts without surrendering ourselves to them?


Comments

  1. Micalah MillerNovember 3, 2021 at 9:24 PM

    I forgot to put my name, but this was me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Campbell LozuawayNovember 5, 2021 at 9:43 AM

    Love it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 7, 2021 at 8:09 PM

    A deep question, Ms. Miller, and I'm glad you wrote about war trauma. So many civilians too were buried in rubble, and no one can speak of that, let alone the atomic bombs. The nation has also been crushed and humiliated, there cannot even be the illusion of cultural pride -- so how does one live on after that?

    ReplyDelete

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