Giovanni's Island

A little bit of History is necessary before I begin this review. The Kuril islands just off the coast of Hokkaido, were invaded by the Soviet Union in 1945 who held occupation until they fell, modern day Russia still holds occupation of the islands, with the promise that they will return to Japan after they have signed a peace treaty and if you were wondering, Japan and Russia still haven't signed a peace treaty from the Second World War. This may seem like random information about a weird dispute about some islands just off the coast of Hokkaido, however it highlights the Soviet treatment of displaced foreigners, which ultimately is something Giovanni's Island explores and elaborates on throughout its narrative partially based on one of the closest islands to Japan - Shikotan.

My expectations for this film were not very high, generally Japanese war films are disingenuous in how they portray the Japanese involvement in the war and too often portray the Americans as monsters while either ignoring Japanese governmental and imperial atrocities or futilely attempting to glorify aspects of the Japanese empire. Giovanni's Island isn't really based on the American conflict however, so manages to avoid this rather effectively, and from further investigation, it appears the movie is fairly accurate in it's portrayal of the Japanese citizens of the island and their displacement.

I'll touch on the production quality before I get onto the plot, though there's not a huge amount to talk about. The audio was fairly good, nothing to sing home about as such, but largely it served its purpose well, however it really turned up a notch when it needed to in emotional scenes. Animation wise there's again little to talk about, I did notice some 3DCG scenes that had been hand drawn over which looked like it fit in very well, obviously it didn't look as good as Gundam Thunderbolt, but for 2014 it still looked pretty great.

"A Japanese can't become a Russkie"

"I wonder if we'll ever come back"

These two quotes seem to encapsulate the major themes of Giovanni's Island, one of the struggles and failures of forced integration as well as the pain and difficulty that comes with civilian displacement after a military conflict. We're introduced to the characters through an old man and his elderly teacher travelling to an island, they discuss memories of it and then the setting shifts to the 1940s in which we're introduced to the wider cast.Emperor Hirohito's surrender address is one of the first major scenes, portrayed as much the same as other interpretations of the event, bringing attention to the civilian's shock at finding the war had ended against their favour despite the reassurances of victory they had been fed for years before. Quickly the population of the small island realises they won't be occupied by Americans as a Soviet ship arrives on their shores. Throughout the first half of the film there are many rather interesting themes presented. Firstly, is one of cultural integration. It's important to mention that the movie portrays this as forceful, adults actively work against one another, Soviet communist systems are not what the Japanese citizens want, and they actively undermine that system, while the Russians treat the Japanese population poorly just for being Japanese, I'd assume they were still mad at them, the Russo-Japanese war wasn't long ago in the grand scheme of things! Jokes aside however, there's an interesting point about the children's indifference to this, the Japanese children, much to their teacher's horror, are interested in the Russians and wish to play with them and at the very least enjoy their time with them - the underlying group mentality remains however as events unfold.

The cruel treatment of the Japanese civilians reaches it's peak when the Soviets take them away, there are several brutally realistic portrayals of the country too, a bag of sugar being half sand for example due to the inaccessibility of sugar in the Russia, and the soviets use of effective slave labour from Japanese people as well as the use of Gulags for any crime that works against the Soviet machine. We even get shown Koreans left behind by the Japanese imperial war effort stuck not knowing what to do, as well as the naivety of the Japanese civilians to the workings and nature of Soviet Russia. I was affected deeply by the ending of the film, it's contrasting of tragedy and the uplifting nature of flick back to the beginning of the movie struck a chord with me and left me crying for a long time. It's rare for me to express emotions openly towards anime, let alone movies that are relatively short compared to TV anime, so this struck me as something significant, largely I feel because of the realistic portrayal of the children's attitudes, which allowed me to relate to them and empathise with them strongly. The usage of quotes from Night on the Galactic Railroad really supplemented the narrative, despite the fact that I'm unfamiliar with the work, the thematic relevance of the quotes was certainly a little more than just impactful.

Giovanni's Island is a near perfect portrayal of the Russian invasion of the Kuril Islands, but it goes further than that, showing Russian cruelty and crafting a believable and impactful narrative as a result of that. It is a Japanese war film done right, no anti-war themes, simply the harsh reality of children suffering through displacement as a result of a war. The only thing that holds the movie back from being a masterpiece is the unfortunately average visuals throughout the movie.