white light black rain

A thrilling documentary with testimonies of the small numbers of survivors from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans in ´45 in which 140,000 victims perished in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki. All survivors are now at the last days of their lives, only now have received a sort of indemnification from the Japanese government. As in other societies, those symbol of defeat, are consciously put aside, left behind, not wanting to be remembered. Those talking in this doc were then young child and they still today carry the physical and psychological wounds caused not only by the bomb but also by their own coreligionists, Japanese that don’t know their suffering, don’t remember what happened and definitely could place themselves into the same situation by not acknowledging what hit their country then. As you all know, the war came to an end as consequence of  plutonium 21 kilotons ¨Fat man¨ and uranium 15 kilotons ¨Little boy¨. The two bombs were carried out by 3 bombers, the Enola Gay and two others, one filled with observers in charged of filming the whole thing and another filled with scientists to measure the explosion. Today humans have risen our destructive capacity to an astonishing 400,000 Hiroshima´s bombs. Well known are Einsteins words about the 4rth World War where weapons will be rocks.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2917730

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2917734

John Woo, Chinese director responsible for, among others, Face Off, this time focuses on Chinese History to create this saga of two long parts that form 4 hours of an epic historical movie at the times of the Han dynasty. This is the most expensive piece made ever in Asia and you can tell already from minute one. Armies of extras, outstanding effects, well chosen script, and beautiful stars.

At first I could help myself from thinking about the seventies awesome TV series named The Water Margin, while seeing the wardrobe, the weapons, their hairdos, etc,.. This is the story of two warlords, at the sunset of the Han dynasty,that rebelled against the dictator emperor and allied to confrontation the last in the mother of all battles.

I see how the film, through the non stopping meaty action, shows to “westerners” how the Chinese culture preceded ours by hundreds of years in the invention of soccer (= Cuju), gunpowder, the use of astrology in the battle field and others. For those of you who look for a well made medieval war action film, with the right amount of blood flowing from the bodies after a blow, the right measure of martial arts, combined with great photography and all in Chinese subtitled sound, this is it.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1525966

Africa Addio (En: “Africa Blood and Guts”) is an Italian documentary prepared in 1966 by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, about the transition that African States made, from colonial provinces to free countries. This piece is indistinguishably a part of a time when certain norms of film shooting were acceptable, such as editing voices without restraint, adding effects unmercifully as well as other sounds, but the peculiar aspect of this doc lies in the veracity of its images.

It describes an important part of the history of Africa and of the countries who made it part of their colonies such as Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, France or the Boers. In most of the cases, these transitions were bloody and cruel, like only humans can carry out, leaving the weakest link to receive the worst blow. After the departure of the white man, local leaders, tribes and guerrillas started to fill the vacuum of power left behind, even through the commission of what we call today crimes against humanity.

Rape, amputations of body parts and cannibalism were only part of the means used to express the hatred against the white man and against anyone related to them. And so, missionaries, Arabs, Muslims, Indians and others were targeted. Needless to say that wild fauna was the first to be massacred, as dire times arrived.

Although the white man formed an intrinsic part of modern slavery and the exploitation of the African natives, well before the first white man touched this continent, slavery was a common practice conducted between different black tribes. According to some historians, Arabs were also responsible for a major part of this business and for the enslavement of almost 18 million persons along the years, compared with 12 million slaves that were transferred to the Americas. Nevertheless, white people were responsible for the second wave of African exploitation, by appropriating the African continental resources to the benefit of western countries, but let´s not forget – always with the collaboration of local politicians, leaders and chiefs.

All and all, and until the last of the colonies, African black natives were freed for the benefit of a small black elite who keeps enriching itself at the expense of the multitudes.

The Soviet story

A research documentary on Soviet crimes against humanity, from the communist revolution till the fall of the USSR. The film will make a historic review on the ideology that justified the mass killings of other ethnic groups in order to establish a reign of terror. This same measures of State terrorism will be copied by the Nazis latter on during WWII in the extermination of 6 million Jews. Communists and Nazis will go along hand in hand in the conquered of Europe, collaborating in many occasions, using the same methods of imperialism and having some of this put in hard copy. A comparison is made on how Nazis criminals were persecuted after the war and how USSR war criminals not only are not persecuted (Europe still today needs Putin’s gas and oil) but they are considered national heroes and if ever they were hunted, a good place to seek refuge would be the UK (for there only Nazis are considered war criminals). Score: 6.3

Nanking was the capital of the Republic of China in 1937 at the time that the Imperial army of Japan arrived, during one of the Sino-Japanese wars. The Japanese take the city and deliberately kill tens of thousands of prisoners, some soldiers some others not. Women will be systematically raped. This is a black and white film, created with all detail to resemble the period, actors are obviously, dealing with a Chinese movie, anonymous to westerners. This picture describes how the Japanese behaved during these wars with the Chinese, for which, by the way, I think there are still officially open cases at the UN reopened for the victims, those women raped then. Score: 5.7