GAMA

Toward the end of the Second World War, Okinawa was the scene of a bloody battle. The Japanese island is now green and serene, but on April 1, 1945, US troops landed to begin a battle that cost a horrific number of lives. The dead also included many civilians who were hiding in caves, such as Chibichirigama, where 140 people had fled to escape the fighting. A day after the invasion, on April 2, 83 of them committed suicide. They had been wrongly told that if they surrendered they would be slaughtered or tortured by the Americans. Narrator and guide Mitsuo Matsunaga’s account of their senseless suicide is delivered in a monotone voice, but is emotional nonetheless. Filmmaker Kaori Oda has placed him in the setting of the abandoned caves, where the memories of the violence originated, as a connector to the past. He is joined by a mysterious woman who listens and observes him like a ghost, as he sometimes literally unearths the traces of the suffering hidden in the underground landscape.