Directors’ Showcase
UK Premier
Koji Wakamatsu/ Japan 2010/ 85 min/ tbc/ Japanese with English subtitles
The notion of duty; to a family, to an Emperor, or to your country, is a theme that the Japanese have returned to frequently in the aftermath of the Sino Japanese and Second World War. Caterpillar, directed by Koji Wakamatsu, explores that theme in a story of a soldier returning from the war to his wife and village, a war hero with medals galore, but minus his limbs and the ability to talk.
The twist is that Lieutenant Kurokawa was no hero before. Having treated his wife with violent contempt, and committed appalling war crimes, our sympathy, like his wife Shigeku’s, is already compromised. We empathise with Shigeku’s response to her husband; her pity, compassion, impatience and resentment. A radio announcement demands that “a good soldier doesn’t become a shameful prisoner”, and at this point it is clear that Shigeko is just as much a prisoner as her husband. A prisoner trapped by duty, honour and the empire. But when the war ends in defeat and your Emperor admits his culpability, you have to wonder, as Shigeku does, what was it all for? Caterpillar asks some difficult questions; are crimes perpetrated in wartime in some way more forgivable? Is self sacrifice in the name of duty ever a worthy cause? But the one answer it does give us, is that in times of war, everyone is a prisoner, at home, and in the field.
Showing @ Filmhouse 17th June 21:15