BY CYNDI GREENING, PARK CITY, USA — Last night, we attended the 9:15 screening of NANKING. We’d been looking forward to it for two days! The opening sequence was enchanting. Wonderful music played as the citizens of Nanking went about their daily activities. The cheeriness of the music and idyllic images only makes one more certain that something bad is going to befall the community any minute. Sure enough, the planes come, the bombs fall and life as it was ceases to exist.
There are two film clips (large) and (small) that give you a flavor of how this film is put together. It combines archival footage with interviews of survivors (victims of Nanking and Japanese soldiers) and actors (in character) reading the actual diary writings and correspondence of the Westerners who tried to protect the innocents of Nanking.
There were many powerful and moving scenes in the film. The scene in which a man tells the story of how his mother (who had been mortally stabbed) propped herself against a pole and attempted to nurse his baby brother while dying was completely overwhelming. I found that I was greatly moved by the stories of the survivors. One of the challenges for documentary filmmakers is the “rule” that there must always be a Western character in a story that takes place on foreign soil so the American audience can relate to the tale. While it is true that the bulk of this story is about the group of Westerners trying to protect people inside the Safety Zone, I found that I was most moved by the non-Western parts of the film.
It is a grim piece of history that continues to influence Chinese-Japanese relations to this day. Over 200,000 people were raped, tortured and/or killed in Nanking at the hands of the Japanese occupational forces. To this day, some of the Japanese soldiers who perpetrated those acts are honored by the Japanese government for their “service” during the war. This continues to create difficult relations between the two countries. NANKING will certainly increase awareness and understanding. I wish it could have been more healing, too.
