The Thick-Walled Room

A film set in a prison in postwar Japan. In a prison in Tokyo are men held as war criminals. All of them are of low rank: privates, non-commissioned officers and minor officials. Those who gave the orders have either not been tried or were released long ago. The film follows several of them. One killed a civilian in a village on an order; the officer who gave it is a businessman today, living comfortably. One is accused of ill-treating prisoners. One cannot remember what he did. Outside are the families. Mothers, siblings and wives are struggling to get by; the weight of the men inside falls on them. The narrative argues about whose the guilt is: the man who carried out the order, the man who gave it, or the order of things that made the war. Passages of dream and memory enter the realistic narrative, and the film is formally freer in them. It was completed in 1953. But its subject was found objectionable given the political conditions of the time and its release was delayed for years; it reached audiences only in 1956. Kobo Abe wrote the screenplay. Ko Mishima, Torahiko Hamada and Keiko Kishi are in the cast. Masaki Kobayashi directed. His later films about war and institutional responsibility can be taken as a continuation of this one. An important production for anyone who likes Japanese cinema and postwar reckoning. For a viewer expecting pace, the film is heavy and keeps its register throughout.