The underground is a collection of geological and anthropological memories. It is an accumulation of non-human processes and human activities. Humanity has only contributed to a small portion to this collection of memories, but its impacts are rhizomatic. The effects of the Anthropocene aren’t just scores to the earth it has lived in, its implications are connected to everything: the space, its beings, and each other.
Okinawa is an example of said collection of memories. Its subterranean landscapes are not only shaped by the geological movements that form its caves, but of the tragedy of its people too. The people of Okinawa were Japanese, although they were considered “lesser citizens”. The caves of Okinawa are turned into military headquarters and even makeshift hospitals. During the United States’ invasion, Okinawa and the people within it are forced to prove their loyalty by serving Imperial Japan in the war.
As the Japanese continue to fearmonger the people of Okinawa, telling them that the Americans are going to torture and rape them in sight, they hide in the caves too. But as these caves serve as strategic places for the Japanese military, the people of Okinawa are shooed away and even executed for being suspected of spies. In other cases, the soldiers and civilians are trapped together in these caves, sharing the same starvation, disease, and bombardments. As medical supplies are running thin, amputations are practiced without the use of euthanasia. Out of sheer hopelessness and fear of the American brutalities that might be imposed upon them once they are caught, many people and even families of Okinawa turn to mass suicide as their only option. As it turns out, the Japanese create these lies to pressure them towards suicide in the name of loyalty towards the Emperor.
Underground (2024) makes sure to connect these historical facts with the psychology of its severed grounds. Director Kaori Oda links memory, geology, and trauma of Okinawa and explores it sensorially—as if to say that the ground beneath a society contains said society’s collective unconsciousness. Oda creates an interplay with the themes she explores in this film by following three centers in its non-narrative storytelling. Firstly, a young woman that drifts in various places, touching its geographies as if a haptic study on the space around her. The second one being the man that explains the atrocities of the Battle of Okinawa, presenting the historical trauma of its land. Thirdly, presentation of several locations: in the underground or the surface, with or without people.
The film, which is an amalgam of these three centers, does not concern itself with coherence. Like the unconscious, the film presents itself with abstractions. These abstractions, then, force the observer to engage with the senses rather than logic—ultimately making us feel the scores of tragedies that are imposed on the body of Okinawa and its people. (Timmie) (Ed. Vanis)
Film Details
Underground
Kaori Oda | 83 min | 2024 | Japan
In Competition for International Feature-Length Documentary
Festival Film Dokumenter 2025
