In the middle of the wilderness of a deserted island, an old man roams with his rifle at the ready and a green camouflage on his back. In a meadow, the oddball lays down two acacia blossoms, while we hear an old Japanese folk song.
The year is 1974. And Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda believes that World War II is still ongoing, that his country is still fighting the Americans. This is how the thrilling drama “Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle” begins, which will be shown on Arte this Wednesday at 8:15 p.m.
In two and a half hours, which is never boring, director Arthur Harari (“Black Diamond”), born in Paris in 1981, tells the incredible but factual story of a man who survives for 30 years on a tropical island in the jungle and simply does not want to believe that the war is long over.
In its final phase in 1944, the young Japanese lieutenant Onoda (Yuya Endo) was actually supposed to be used as a pilot, maybe even as a kamikaze pilot. But his fear of heights ruins the plan. Instead, Onoda is recruited into an elite force by an ambitious major. “Your body is the fatherland”, this martial motto is injected into him by his superior, and he trains Onoda in the art of “secret warfare”.
Psychogram of a fighter
When the lieutenant was supposed to organize resistance against the Allies on the Philippine island of Lubang in 1944, the war was almost lost for the Japanese. Onoda retreats into the mountains with three followers to attack the enemy as a mobile guerrilla unit. But he never shows up, the war is over. Just not in the mind of the fanatical Onoda.
This unusually exciting film, which at times comes across as a chamber play, vividly sketches the psychogram of a fighter who is waging his own private campaign. Onoda proves to be a caring superior who cares about the well-being of his people. But there are fewer and fewer: After years in the jungle, only his deputy Kozuka (Yuya Matsuura) remains loyal to him. They vegetate on the island like two Robinsons, go swimming in the sea for the first time in years, finally own a small radio and are fascinated by the reports of the moon landing in 1969. The loneliness of the astronauts sounds familiar to them.
In addition to these wonderfully intimate moments, there are also scenes of violence and paranoia: the deafening jungle, the loneliness and the week-long monsoon rain give birth to monsters, very similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s drug-laden Vietnam classic “Apocalypse Now” (1979).
Arthur Hirara’s drama, presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, also vividly shows how military drill deforms the soldiers’ consciousness and withers every human emotion: there is always war in the head. In our current situation, this haunting message is once again frighteningly topical.
