Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle

After the end of the Second World War, a lone Japanese soldier fights on for another twenty-nine years.

Hiroo Onoda died in Tokyo in 2014 at the age of ninety-one but rather unexpectedly he has become the focus of this dramatised film looking back on his experiences when serving as an intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army. His claim to fame lay in the fact that, having been posted to Lubang, an island in the Philippines, he remained on duty there until 1974, unaware that peace had been declared in 1945. His story is certainly an extraordinary one, but to choose to make a film now about this last soldier of the war is somewhat surprising and even more so is the fact that Onoda was directed by a Frenchman, Arthur Harari, who also co-wrote the screenplay. However, the result is a work far more satisfying than one might have expected, especially in view of Onoda lasting all of 167 minutes.

Harari begins his film with a pre-credit sequence set in 1974. We see a tourist (Taïga Nakano) arrive on the island where he encounters Onoda (Kanji Tsuda) still in the jungle and still armed. But, following that foretaste, the narrative promptly goes back to 1944 to show the younger Onoda (Yûya Endô) being trained by Major Taniguchi (Issey Ogata) who sees potential in the 18-year-old. Whereas many Japanese felt that suicide was honourable if defeat was looming, Taniguchi firmly believed instead that sticking it out whatever the circumstances was right and he saw in Onoda an instinctive survivor capable of leading men in those conditions. This teaching would lead to Lieutenant Onoda setting up his own band of trusted fellow soldiers on Lubang island on learning that the Americans were moving in. They would soon be down to four in number, but they were ready to hold out in the jungle until relief would come. In Onoda’s case this would hold him there for some thirty years or so. He was cut off from what was happening and refused to believe his eyes when he was enabled to see magazines and newspapers describing a post-war world.

Harari tells the story straightforwardly obtaining highly persuasive performances from his Japanese cast (playing the young Onoda, Endô is particularly well chosen). Equally effective is the tone of the piece which avoids ramping up the drama but is adroit in those scenes in which violence breaks out. Some critics have questioned the film's refusal to look at the story through contemporary eyes and it is indeed the case that the screenplay ignores investigating the nationalism rampant in Japan at the time and considering it in the light of other national movements today. Similarly, despite our now being in an age of fake news readily believed by many, Harari does not seem to find any modern parallels between that and Onoda’s gullibility in holding on to his belief that Japan has not lost the war. But such stresses are not needed and could easily have obtruded. What we have works because Harari portrays the extraordinary facts convincingly and, while refusing simplistically to cast Onoda as either heroic or foolish, allows viewers to draw their own conclusions. At the same time, he does show the cost to Onoda and his men of being cut off from society for years and thereby losing so much experience of life.

Onoda is well photographed by the director’s brother, Tom, and as a narrative it is judicious in finding episodes which, taken together, convey a sense of Onoda living through 10,000 nights. There is one misjudgment, however, in that Harari chooses for his prologue material which will be seen again when the story reaches 1974. Unfortunately, the incident depicted at the outset comes back into the tale when there is still over half an hour for the film to run and misleads us into thinking that we are reaching the end. The last third of Onoda happens to be the slowest (in particular the encounter between the older Onoda and the tourist is decidedly drawn out although that does make it come across as authentically Japanese). In the circumstances it would have been much better had the prologue featured a later scene set in a Tokyo bookshop. In that event we would have come full circle at a time when the climax would quickly be reached and that would have undoubtedly improved the film. But as it stands, it is still an effective piece and one well worth your attention.

Original title: Onoda: 10,000 nuits dans la jungle.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Yûya Endô, Kanji Tsuda, Yûya Matsuura, Tetsuya Chiba, Sihnsuke Kato, Kai Inowaki, Issey Ogata, Taïga Nakano, Nobuhiro Suwa, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Timomitsu Adachi, Kyûsaku Shimada, Angeli Bayani.

Dir Arthur Harari, Pro Nicolas Anthomé, Screenplay Arthur Harari and Vincent Poymiro with Bernard Cendron, Ph Tom Harari, Pro Des Brigitte Brassard, Ed Laurent Sénéchal, Music Sebastiano De Gennaro, Enrico Gabrielli, Andrea Poggio, Gak Sato and Olivier Marguerit, Costumes Catherine Marchand and Patricia Saive.

To Be Continued/Ascent Film/Chipangu/Frakas Productions/Pandora Film Produktion/Arte France Cinéma/Rai Cinema/Proximus-Third Window Films.
167 mins. France/Japan/Germany/Belgium/Italy/Cambodia. 2021. UK Rel: 15 April 2022. Cert. 15.