MovieChat Forums > Onoda (2022) Discussion > Good film, just a bit long

Good film, just a bit long

posted 2 years ago by diagoro (490)
7 replies | jump to latest

But understandably long. It's the story about one of the last Japanese soldier's to surrender after the end of WW2 in 1945, hiding in the jungle until 1974 (believe there was one who hid a bit longer). It's a fascinating story, one filled with desperate loneliness and longing in the later half, which the film does a decent job of showing. In fact, if they wanted to really display the true isolation they felt (he started with a small squad), it could have been much longer and starker. Regardless, really enjoyed the film, only wish they would have shown more about his transition to life after surrender, adjusting to a world that was a stark change from wartime Japan and global politics.

There are other great Japanese films about the Pacific War, the original Fires On The Plain (1959) kept coming to mind.

[–] brux (14807) 2 years ago

Sounds interesing. A Japanese film with a French title?

[–] diagoro (490) 2 years ago

It's a joint Japanese/French production, but looks like most the staff was Japanese.

[–] MichaelJPollock (784) 2 years ago

My favourite film of 2021.
Very introspective. I thought the length of the film (just under three hours) was appropriate and really worked towards understanding the mental and emotional state of Onoda. Spending that much time on the island with him also really paid of by the time the fantastic closing sequence arrives.
Very good minimalist score as well.

[–] diagoro (490) 2 years ago

True about the length, anything shorter takes away from showing how isolated they were, and for how long.

[–] MichaelJPollock (784) 2 years ago

Yes, I also really like the theme of learning to come to "love your cage" and your circumstances. During the many years he spends on the island, Onoda names things and places. He suffers, fraternizes, experiences longing and loneliness, mourns, has epiphanies, etc. and all these moments and emotions become crystalized in specific parts of the island (he names places after his departed brothers in arms, remembers them through ritual pilgrimage...).
Onoda makes this prison island his (he even "becomes" the island as the years go by: he is more and more "mineral", static, covered in camouflage ferns and branches...). Which is why the final sequence of him leaving the island really gets me: he realizes this island became his life, it's were he lived it, were he had all these important experiences. I think everyone over 40 understands this feeling. The moment when you realize: "Oh, so that's what was in store for me. That's the person I was meant to be. And all these hardships and things I fought against, they became my life, made me who I am, and I've learned to love them somehow."

[–] Dub88 (57) a year ago

Love what you wrote. Great film. It is long but that last shot of onoda on the heli is so powerful.

[–] MichaelJPollock (784) a year ago

Thank you. Yes, that shot of Onoda's feet leaving the ground of "his" island forever as he climbs aboard the helo is quite beautiful. And as he does so, he becomes part of History and finally lets the enormity of what he has experienced register on this face of his, trained to let no emotions cloud its surface.