The Crying Wind



I ended Memorial Day here by going to see the new film, Fûon (The Crying Wind). It was written by the interesting Okinawan writer Medoruma Shun. I saw a trailer for it online before coming here and figured it would be good. It was--and it was perfect to end Memorial Day with. It dealt with war memories, centered on the skull of a Japanese kamikaze pilot who was shot down and washed ashore during the Battle of Okinawa. His body was washed and laid to rest in a cave in the cliffs near the ocean by a local man and his son (who in the present time of the story is a rather mysterious man who is keeping the truth of the skull to himself when the dead pilot's sister comes from the mainland to find out the truth about her brother's death nearly 60 years after the fact). After crabs eat the corpse clean, the local man puts the skull up above the cave in a crevice, facing Japan across the ocean. The skull has a hole in it from a bullet so that when the sea breeze kicks up, the skull emits a haunting moaning whistle through the hole and mouth, kind of like when you whistle in a jug. Much of the story centers on a group of young local boys who befriend another little boy from the mainland who has come with his mother who, we learn, has fled her abusive husband. They show him the skull and one of the boys who is particularly protective of the mainland boy takes a tiny fish that the mainland boy caught and bets the other boys that if they put it in a jar and place it next to the skull, it'll stay alive for a week. After the jar is placed next to the skull, the skull doesn't cry anymore when the wind comes, which disappoints the sister who has come to Okinawa and suspects (we think) the skull is that of her brother. The man who helped his father dispose of the body years ago in the cave knows it is her brother, but he never directly tells her this. In the end, the fish lives, and when the one boy takes of jar down to confirm this to the little mainland boy upon his departure from Okinawa, just after the sister has left offerings at the base of the cliff, the wind cries again through the skull. The sister finally tears up the letter the her brother left her on the night of his departure for his mission, a piece of which--with her name on it--floats down butterfly-like next to the skull where the jar was. Everything is settled. There's more about the estranged wife which further complicates the relations in the story, but I won't get into that now. Just try top see the movie. Its depiction of human connections over time, of spirits, of nature, has a subtle supernaturalism to it that is quite effective. Add to that an oblique treatment of Okinawa-mainland Japanese relations and you have a rather thought-provoking film. Of course, I was only one of maybe six people in the entire theater--thoughtful films aren't too popular here (or much anywhere else) it seems....

Posted: Sat - June 26, 2004 at 10:42 PM           |

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