TIFF 2023: ‘Shadow of Fire’ Review
One of Japan’s most provocative auteurs remains frustrated in the final film of his war trilogy, Shadow of Fire. As a small town in Japan is engulfed by flames and the ravages of war come knocking on every doorstep, Shinya Tsukamoto’s latest film centers itself on the innocence of a child and the violent world that surrounds him. Through those innocent eyes comes an unflinching portrait of the struggle to survive when the human soul becomes just as scarred as the Earth it roams.
Tsukamoto has never been one to shy away from the pain and anguish of a situation, though the way he goes about presenting it is often more striking than the violence itself. It’s the circumstances that his characters find themselves in - characters often built by their environment to commit the acts they do. More aptly, they’re often driven to violent acts as a necessary form of resolution or catharsis to their trauma. This is reflected in the world around them, which, in the case of Shadow of Fire, is reeling from firebomb attacks and the recent suffering during World War II.
The disparate lives of three people forced to cope with a new world of grief and trauma coalesce in the confines of a tavern, still standing but financially burdened by the war. A young woman (Shuri) can barely make ends meet and resorts to selling her body in addition to a bowl of ramen and a drink. Her shop is raided nightly by a young boy (Ouga Tsukao) who is forced to live in the streets and desperately seeks food and a warm place to sleep. After a visit from a young man (Hiroki Kono) seeking comfort over pleasure, the boy is invited into the young woman’s home, where the three form a rhythm to their lives - a normalcy that the war took from them.
It’s the claustrophobic nature of Shadow of Fire that gives the chamber drama elements of Tsukamoto’s film a visceral edge despite the terror happening outside of the tavern’s walls. As the days go by and the young boy and man go out looking for work, the film stays inside the home and specifically lingers within the main dining area. Parts of the building remain hidden, leaving an air of secrecy behind the young woman who has become hardened by the situation. There’s a subtlety to Shuri’s performance that hits hardest when it’s disturbed by the nagging concern that things may never be normal again.
It isn’t until the screenplay shifts and the coming-of-age elements take the forefront that Shadow of Fire begins doing away with subtlety. A stranger (Mirai Moriyama) with a mysterious proposition for the young boy takes him under his wing and the film seamlessly blends into a road movie as the two wander Japan’s countryside. Tsukamoto captures the exterior just as darkly as the inside of the tavern, and the relationship between the stranger and the young boy feels just as tenuous as it did before - people guarding themselves from an inevitable loss that they know to expect.
What lingers after the events of Shadow of Fire unfold is not that war is Hell; it’s the torment that it leaves behind that causes greater suffering. There is an intangible pain hidden within every survivor, and as Tsukamoto’s screenplay digs into each character’s psyche, it reveals trauma that can never be healed. The remarkable staging of each section of Shadow of Fire reflects that state of being when even the safety of four walls cannot be trusted more than the bleak realities outside. As its child protagonist experiences this newfound Hell, the heartbreak and anger that Tsukamoto has wrestled with in his trilogy of war films feels reluctantly accepted.
