CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH

China, 2009, 132 minutes, Black and white.
Ye Liu, Yuan Yuan Gao, Hideo Nakaizumi, Wei Fan.
Directed by Chuan Lu.

Winner of the SIGNIS award at the San Sebastian Festival, 2009.

This fine film provided two of the most gruelling hours I have spent watching films.

In recent years, there have been a number of films dramatising the Japanese Imperial Army's attack on Nanking in 1937, the subsequent siege and massacres (and the short-lived safety zone), sometimes referred to (and the film reminds us of the literal reality of this) as 'the rape of Nanking'. Officials and leaders left the city which served as the capital of China. Soldiers of the surrendering army were slaughtered. Women were taken and raped, supplementing the work of the 'comfort women' imported from Japan for the soldiers. The callous attitudes of the occupying forces were both cavalier and brutal.

Personally, I was glad to have already seen the German- Chinese co-production, John Rabe, which offered a stronger narrative background to the events as well as dramatically delineating key characters. The film featured Ulrich Turkur in a fine performance as John Rabe, the longtime German representative of the Siemens company in Nanking. As a loyal German, he was a member of the Nazi party – which linked him with the Japanese invaders. However, he was a man of compassion and, after international discussions in the city, he undertook the establishing of a safety zone which was, for a time, honoured. The film's cast included Daniel Bruehl, Steve Buscemi and Anne Consigny.

The same characters are seen, sometimes rather sketchily, in City of Life and Death, but the overall communication of the film is less by narrative than by graphic depictions of events (at times disturbingly graphic) with a cumulative effect rather than a story which proceeds by cause and effect. It is like a dramatic installation which would enable a viewer to spend as long as they wished contemplating one story before moving on to the next.

The film was shot in black and white, at times with newsreel immediacy, taking the camera and the audience into the middle of the action.

The Chinese are portrayed as the victims of terrible imperial hubris and unlimited cruelty. The Japanese are presented as militarily and culturally barbaric, the ordinary soldiers moving from sadistic treatment of prisoners, abusive treatment of women, and then being just ordinary men doing ordinary things. It is alarming how human beings can move so easily from despicable behaviour to 'normal' behaviour and so quickly and unreflectively.

The film-makers have included, however, along with recognisable characters like John Rabe, the Chinese assistant to Rabe, Mr Tong, and his family, Miss Jiang, translator and liaison, the international characters, a focus on a Japanese soldier, Kadokawa, who participates in the Japanese domination but who begins to question commands, is repelled by some of the behaviour and comes to a final tragic realisation of what has happened to the Chinese, to the Japanese invaders and to himself. While the frustration of John Rabe, the sad story of Mr Tong and his wife and child, the decisions that the young women have to make to save the bigger group are emotionally harrowing, this more sympathetic portrayal of Kadokawa is presented with a generosity of spirit by the Chinese towards the Japanese.

This is a compelling film that highlights one of the messages of the aftermath of war, 'lest we forget'.

1. Chinese history, the 1930s, the siege of Nanking? The role of the Japanese, the invasion, the imperial army, the cruelty? The number of films about the episode in Nanking?

2. Chinese storytelling, episodic, less causal and plot-driven, the characters in this context, individuals in a social context?

3. The impact of the black and white photography, the news footage, the effect of black and white rather than colour, taking the audience back into the past, sense of history, the film as a record, documentary-like, realism?

4. The title and the experience of Nan King, 1937-38?

5. The background of the Japanese invasion, Japanese imperialism of the 30s, targeting China? The ideology of supremacy? The forces, the vast imperial army? The advance, the attack, the harshness and the massacres, individual and group cruelty? Occupying Nanking? Callous attitudes? The personnel, their executing the soldiers, the violence and torture? Then relaxing and playing? Buying things in the city, the role of the comfort women, the local women? The ruthless officers and their decisions? The episode of the dance of celebration?

6. The focus on one Japanese individual, Kado Kawa? Ordinary, educated in a church school, his reaction to shooting the civilian? His sense of values? The screenplay picking him out, a more sympathetic Japanese – and the response of a Chinese audience? Kado Kawa’s experience, of orders, of cruelty? His friends and the other soldiers, seeing him in his ordinary life with them? The comfort women, the sexual episode, his infatuation with the prostitute, her not remembering him? The impact of her death? His observing people, the cruelty, change of attitude? Participation in the dance? The aftermath, setting the civilians free, contemplation – and his suicide?

7. The Chinese government fleeing from Nan King, the majority of the soldiers being killed, others being sheltered in the Safety Zone? The Safety Zone and John Rabe and his appeal to the Japanese authorities? The permission? The strict supervision and limits? Rabe and his background, working in China for so long, belonging to the Nazi Party? His wife? The other members of the international group? Hitler asking Rabe to return? The soldiers in the Zone, the schoolgirls? His leaving for Germany, Mr Tang and his support of him, loyalty, trying to get Tang his freedom, Tang’s wife?

8. Tang, symbol of Chinese loyalty, working for the company? His character, his wife and sister-in-law, their going with the comfort women? His daughter being killed in front of him? The Japanese ruthlessness? His leaving with Rabe, his wife, giving up his life for the Chinese officer, his being taken away, dignity in execution?

9. The range of women, the Japanese demand for a hundred? The volunteers? Their going to the Japanese, the cruel behaviour, some deaths? The volunteers returning?

10. Miss Jiang, caring for the schoolgirls, the Japanese soldiers and their advances on them? Her work as a translator? The surviving soldier, with the boy, being taken away for execution, his appeal to her? Her being shot?

11. The visuals of the cruelty, the officers, the massacres, the soldier and the boy and their surviving? Hiding in the Safety Zone? The examination by the Japanese officers – and those relegated for execution?

12. Japanese ruthlessness, the Chinese not wanting to forget this episode in their history?