Coluna Claquete - September 12, 2016 - Movie of the week: "Dirty Hearts"

 

 

Newton Ramalho

 

colunaclaquete@gmail.com - www.colunaclaquete.blogspot.com - @colunaclaquete

 

Movie of the Week: "Dirty Hearts"

In war, truth is the first victim. This quote, attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus, seems never lose their validity. In all wars advertising will always be one of the most important weapons, and linked to it, the manipulation of ideas and facts. It was like that with a barely known event in the history of Brazil, that happened after the Second World War, and that only came to light through the beautiful book of Fernando Morais, and Vicente Amorim's film "Dirty Hearts".

Few people know that, although Brazil had never been at war with Japan, immigrants from that country, which here formed the largest colony in the world, were very harassed, prevented from traveling freely, to own radios, to have publications in their language, to transmit their culture to children, and even to show their flag.

It is not surprising that after the official end of the war, most of the Japanese community in Brazil doubted that Japan had lost. In their logic, Japan had never been defeated in two thousand years, and if it were the case, all the Japanese would have to commit suicide. Alie is it the fact that, in the 1940s, the communications are sufferable, especially during wartime.

After an incident where an arrogant policeman raided a party and profaned the Japanese flag, using it to clean his boots, it started an underground movement in the colony, which would culminate with dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests.

Nationalists or tokkotai, who did not believe in Japan's defeat, have created organizations that aimed to punish the Japanese who "had surrendered to the enemy", who lied about Japan's defeat, who spoke Portuguese, and adapted to local customs.These were named "dirty hearts".

What seemed to many simply be a "fight between Japanese" actually became a case of sophisticated propaganda machine, with falsifying reports of international magazines, reversing the victory for Japan.

This movement quite damaged the Brazilian economy, because all that was considered "important to the enemy" was boycotted or sabotaged. The tokkotai brought to Brazil, especially São Paulo and Paraná, war actions that had never happened during the actual war.

Over the years 1946 and 1947, 23 migrants were killed by tokkotai, and 147 were injured. The case has taken such proportions that more than 31,000 migrants were arrested for years, of which 381 actually tried, and 80 sentenced to prison and expulsion from the country. In 1956, all ended up being amnestied by President Kubitschek.

Unlike the book of Fernando Morais, who as always strives for extensive documentation and testimony, the film brings events in fictional form, showing them from the perspective of photographer Takahashi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), his wife iyuki (Takako Tokiwa) and the small girl Akemi (Celine Fukumoto).

Takahashi is co-opted by Watanabe (Eiji Okuda), a retired official of the Japanese Imperial Army to participate in the movement of punishment for traitors of the fatherland. Takahashi feels doubts about whether it is right what they do, especially when he has to fake photos to create the illusion of Japan's victory.

The film recreates competently the rural post-war Brazil, and Japanese colony.The cinematographer used a yellow filter that refers to the universe around which the facts happen. Moreover, the use of a filter that blurred the edges bothered for the excess that was applied.

Another detail that drew attention - and that bothers any lover of Japanese martial arts - was the proposal of the film to use the long sword, katana, for suicides. In real life, it was offered to the victims of tokkotai a tanto, a Japanese military knife. In ancient Japan, the samurais used, for the ritual suicide, the wakizashi, the shortest sword from the pair they customarily used.It would be impossible to do this with the greatest one.

Forgetting these technical details, the film is important to show these facts apparently forgotten in Brazilian history, and in reality reveals how intolerance and fanaticism do harm to humanity. It would be so good people see these movies and take this message of communion of life. Well, if the truth is the first casualty of war, hope is always the last to die.