An interesting and important film recently made available by the BBC, the film tries to put the voices of the Japanese at the centre of it rather than telling it through an allied perspective as we often get. The archive footage contrasts sharply with the modern footage. No real attempt is made to analyse how the bombings contributed to ending the war or what other options there might have been for Truman. Very little mention is made either of the appalling facist system, whatever else this was not a random act of aggrression on a humane and enlightened society which you may forget watching the film. It remains true though that it really is so often the civilians who suffer most terribly in war. The film does not really highlight either the accepted use of "strategic bombing" by all sides during WWII, might survivors of the Tokyo Firestorms have some equally compelling testimony you wonder?
The accounts and some of the photographs make for horrifying viewing, it's really in the detail of the accounts that we discover the true horror which also extends to some of the girls who survived tending to the injured or made to help with the mass cremations. The film moves us forward in time dealing with the lives of those who survived rather than with the rebuilding of the city. The lesser known part at the end tells us about the discrimination and hardship faced by these survivors often at the hands of thrir osn government and people, as well as hearing about the effects the radiation had on their chances for marriage and children. Many of these survivors seem remarkably calm and without anger you do notice, perhaps age helps to soften things..... most of the survivors were children or teenagers when the bombings took place. One account by a survivor just 3 at the time can't really be taken as a first hand account, others may struggle to recall some details now of events from so long ago.
In summary the film achieves its purpose as a haunting account of the survivors, it does not really examine though the causes of it all. No historians feature either. In using first hand eye witness testimony though, albeit with much passage of time, it does relay some powerful accounts. An anti nuclear message also is not so subtly raised at points towards the end too, with a final address to the UN.
