yang rui丨"the sinking of the lisbon maru": the brightness of human nature must be conveyed by you and me
2024-09-11
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fang li, a native of sichuan, has always been on a journey of crossing boundaries in life. he is a marine physicist and the head of a marine technology company for 42 years. he personally participated in the salvage and rescue of the dalian may 7 air crash. he has been a chinese film producer for 24 years and has produced excellent films such as "guanyin mountain", "see you tomorrow" and "riding the wind and waves".
at the age of 71, his debut film as a director, "the sinking of the lisbon maru" (hereinafter referred to as "the sinking of the lisbon maru"), was released nationwide.
this film took eight years to make and cost tens of millions of dollars. it traveled to several countries including the united kingdom, japan, china, the united states, canada, and interviewed 380 families of prisoners of war. it can be said to be a huge project.
the film tells the story of the lisbon maru, a japanese cargo ship carrying british prisoners of war during world war ii. after it was sunk by an american submarine at sea, nearly two thousand prisoners of war struggled to survive in the japanese army's massacre-like blockade, and more than three hundred of them were rescued by chinese fishermen.
i once wondered why the chinese went to such great lengths to film and produce such a foreigner's tragic chapter in the distant history of world war ii? why would today's moviegoers pay attention to the ancient story of a shipwreck that sank more than 80 years ago? how does it resonate with modern audiences who are struggling with algorithmic survival in the era of intelligence?
but when i saw this movie in the cinema for the first time, i couldn't help but think that this was not only a rare breath of fresh air for the entire summer, but also a rare breath of fresh air in the overly impetuous chinese cinemas in recent times.
it may even become an important ballast stone in the film competition of our time.
the entire film adopts a method of revealing the truth in an ongoing manner. fang li started the filming in the triple roles of a historical explorer, marine scientist, and film director, leading the entire process of tracking, tracing, and revealing the truth.
the content of the film is extremely complex and closely woven. in the two-hour film, there are scientific explorations of ocean shipwrecks, sonar tracking, the collection of clues from survivors around the world, the pursuit of more truths beyond the salvage of historical documents, oral narration of family painful memories, philosophical reflections on moral dilemmas, and it is a heart-shaking historical tragedy.
in the immersive film viewing process of unraveling the mystery layer by layer, the audience completely travels back to the extreme environment of war, where desires are torn apart and the roots are entangled, and witnesses how all the struggles and wrestling of human nature are extremely restrained and calmly displayed in their true colors. the film is calm and magnificent, with surging inner emotions. the audience was often heard sobbing in the theater.
uncovering the psychological fabric of war violence
the most powerful passage in the film first appears in the scene where fang li takes a risk to visit military historians and descendants of the parties involved in japan. the question rarely hits the point: why did they not rescue the prisoners of war when there were enough rescue ships and the island was nearby, but closed the hatch and let the prisoners die with the ship?
the answer of japanese military historians is that when there is a dilemma between preventing prisoners of war from escaping and letting them live, the war situation will choose to unconditionally prevent prisoners of war from escaping. the 1,800 prisoners of war included experienced naval combat forces of the british royal navy, which posed a threat to their military control. so according to the needs of the war, they were killed without mercy.
in the hong kong military court trial record of the captain of the lisbon maru, shigeru kiyomaru, who executed the order to seal the hatch, kiyomaru said that the tragedy was caused by the japanese officer on the ship who ordered the hatch to be sealed. in the end, the court still sentenced him to seven years in prison because it could not prove that he was coerced. the court's questions were reproduced in "inside" in an extremely direct and sharp way, which shows that the film did not stop at simple moral criticism in revealing the historical truth. it actually revealed the dark choice that the unjust party could never prove.
the descendants of the us combat submarines said in an interview with fang li: war is radical. if you don't kill people, they will kill you. this is almost the law of the jungle that is tacitly accepted by the world. but when they heard the interview recording played by fang li, and heard their father, the torpedo engineer who carried out the torpedo bombardment of the lisbon maru and personally caused 800 allied prisoners of war to die in the sea, confessed and cried bitterly at the memorial gathering for the surviving prisoners of war, they really knew that even if the evil deeds of hurting one's own kind are forgiven, the torture and torture of conscience in the future will be more severe and long-lasting crimes and punishments, and no one can escape from the battlefield of violence unscathed.
under the shadow of evil, the miracle of resistance
the film not only shows the psychological texture of human sadism on the lisbon maru, but fortunately it also shows us the prisoners' power to resist in crisis under the oppression of great fear, violence and death.
in addition to the violent confrontation, captain cuthbertson organized the prisoners of war to escape in an orderly manner, and stayed in the cabin to read the classic scottish children's book poetry collection for the dying soldiers, giving some spiritual comfort to the wandering souls who died in a foreign land. the most impressive part is that the soldiers received potassium cyanide capsules as usual at the beginning of the war in preparation for self-liberation when they became prisoners of war. but suicide is cowardly, and captain hamilton threw away the potassium cyanide as soon as possible. he wanted to fight bravely for himself until the last moment. but when he struggled to squeeze out of the bottom cabin and jumped into the sea from the capsized ship, he was chased and shot by the japanese army. he knew that there was no possibility of survival, so he stopped swimming to the shore and swam to the high seas in a suicide manner. at this moment, he did not seek life but death because he decided not to die under the guns of his own kind. if he had to face death, he would choose the way to die. this was the last chance for the living to control their own destiny.
the film also shows a very rare account from history, in which the survivors recall the last moments they saw the missing persons while floating on the sea. this ritualized scene is very shocking, with voices interweaving, scenes reappearing, and young faces disappearing in the waves. it is a commemoration of the dead by the living, the final farewell of families to their loved ones, and the solemn compassion of mankind for its compatriots.
the emotional rhythm of the film is also extremely delicate and accurate. in front of the audio-visual death experience of physical oppression that is highly restored through 3d animation and character narration, the audience, like all the characters in the film, holds their breath and stops talking. the hope of life is strangled after several struggles. the despair and suffocation of having no home to return to become close. all the shots are like a knife and an axe chisel left in the heart, and before they can feel the pain, they are covered by a greater force. and this force is the power of good.
in the darkest moment, the light of rescue suddenly came on.
today, there is a famous bronze statue of chen caibo in the waters of zhoushan, zhejiang. on stormy nights, he would go up to the top of the mountain and light a fire to guide fishing boats, helping countless people escape; if someone fell into the water, he would rescue them. this is the simple belief of the fishermen along the coast.
so, 80 years ago, when more than 200 fishermen found that the soldiers floating on the capsized ship were being chased by the japanese guns and artillery, they extended a helping hand without hesitation. more than 200 poor chinese fishermen, who suffered more than anyone else, ran to the battlefield at sea in silence without any battle team, swearing in the army or shouting, braving the gunfire to rescue the prisoners who fell into the water, and took away one by one, and hid one by one.
what is meaningful is that afterward, no one asked for gratitude or compensation for this heroic act of saving lives. even in the movie, we see that even the descendants are rarely able to tell the historical details, because the rescued fishermen are not considered a memory worth remembering to future generations, and instead they think it should be forgotten.
when the japanese army found more than 300 prisoners of war, the fishermen did their best to hide three british senior officers and sent 15 elite fishermen to cover them all the way through several blockades to the british embassy. history is often so mysterious. it was precisely because of these three british prisoners of war who escaped under the protection of chinese fishermen that the truth about the japanese massacre of prisoners of war on the lisbon maru was finally revealed to the world.
god is watching what we do. at this point, the events that were triggered in a chain like dominoes have finally come to an end, and the wheel of fate has begun to turn in the right direction.
history is easy to be abstract if you look at it from a distance, just time events and numbers; if you look at it closer, you will be easily depressed, the scenes are never new, and god overturns all living things like fine soil turning over sand. but if you look at it close enough, enough details will be vivid in your memories, the emotions between human beings are as thin as cicada wings but powerful, and you will see miracles appearing bit by bit. when the evil instinct is released, the good instinct will definitely take action; there is killing all, but there is also benevolence and courage.
during the film interview, fang li repeatedly emphasized that the first person to carry the story of the sinking of the lisbon maru was dr. tony banham, the author of the biography "the sinking of the lisbon maru: britain's forgotten wartime tragedy", the second person to carry the story was the filmmakers, and the third person should be handed over to the audience. in fact, this is also the essence of the story chain of the sinking of the lisbon maru.
under the cruelty of fate, chinese fishermen reassembled the scattered lives. this is not a war history film, but a calm and brave spiritual vision film. it was born at the right time, not only questioning the brutality of war across the long river of history, but also trying to explore the absolute kindness between life and survival.
in today's world, with severe shocks day after day, technological progress is sometimes unable to withstand the black hole of the human heart. the vigilance against the sense of isolation in the world will put us in the cold sea night again. at this time, a chinese film gently and firmly says: have faith, the brightness of human nature must be conveyed by you and me.
this is just like the 98-year-old pow survivor william waved his hand freely at the end of the film: war is a dirty business, i have lived to this day and only look to the future.
author: yang rui
text: yang rui (associate professor of literature at beijing film academy) editor: fan xin responsible editor: shao ling
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