Post By: Taylor
Hollister
Loosely
based on Nakazawa’s personal experience as a survivor of the atomic bomb in
Hiroshima, Japan, Barefoot Gen tells
the story of a small boy, Gen, and his family. The family lives in poverty, Gen’s
father works making Japanese sandals while his mother is very pregnant and
malnourished, being confined to bed rest. The story takes place during the
final part of the Second World War when most families were tired and
war-stricken. On August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Gen
and his mother survived the blast but Gen’s father and younger brother get
trapped beneath a crumbled building and died right before their eyes. The
traumatic experience caused Gen’s mother to go into labor. Gen delivered the
baby and called her Tomoko.
Gen
and his mother struggled to survive in the aftermath of the atomic bomb. They
witnessed the atrocious effects of the aftermath. The city was full of dead
bodies and there were thousands of survivors suffering from severe burns and
radiation poisoning. Gen’s hair fell out due to radiation poisoning and he thought
he is going to die. He remembered the words of his dying father and he took
charge of his family. He searched for food and built shelter for his mother and
baby sister. They adopted a little orphaned boy who looked like his little
brother who died and they united and worked to earn money to buy milk for their
malnourished and dying baby sister. However, by the time they raised enough
money, the baby was dead. On August 14, 1945 Emperor Hirohito made an
announcement to the whole country that Japan surrendered unconditionally to the
Americans. The film ends with Gen and his new brother finding some newly
sprouted wheat.
Masaki
uses traditional cinematic techniques and animation to tell this most important
story that could not have the same effect for the viewer if done using
traditional live actors. Creating a film with traditional film and live actors,
in some ways, limits the creativity of the director. In order to recreate this
awesome event in history, Masaki decided to use anime in order to help the
viewer really experience this horrible event. Anime helps the director show
something beyond depiction and comprehension to an audience who has not experienced
the event. With traditional actors and the technology of his time, Masaki would
not have been able to recreate the effects of the atomic bomb.
In addition to being a good medium,
animation is able to create anonymity for the characters. Although this movie
is an anti-war movie, it is not an anti-America movie. The film is able to
purely show the horrific effects of war without blaming the American pilots,
who dropped the bomb. Masaki was able to do this by using anime to create a
separation between the pilots who dropped the atomic bomb and the viewer. The
animated faces of the pilots in the plane have very little detail and are hard
to identify as any one race or nationality. This makes the film purely about
the atrocities of war and nuclear warheads rather than about the people who
caused them to happen.
In addition to animation Masaki
uses traditional cinematic techniques to portray this story. He uses long shots
to show the expanse of the damage done by the atomic bomb. For example after
the initial explosion, the city is in flames.
In conclusion, in his film, Barefoot Gen, Masaki is able to create a
film using cinematic techniques as well as animation to recreate scenes of the
bombing of Hiroshima during World War II that are beyond depiction if using
live-action.
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