The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II has produced a modest crop of commemorative films in Japan. Kazuhiro Taira’s “Army on the Tree” stands out by virtue of the fact that it isn’t compromised by iffy politics or glaring budgetary constraints.
This is a war movie that doesn’t avert its gaze from the ugliness of conflict, but should also appeal to a general audience (though overseas viewers will have to get past that infelicitous English title first).
It’s adapted from a celebrated stage play conceived (but never completed) by the late dramatist Hisashi Inoue. The war’s legacy was a running theme in Inoue’s work, and he remained adamant throughout his life that ordinary Japanese people shared responsibility for what had happened. This comes through loudly in “Army on the Tree,” which was staged posthumously in Tokyo by Inoue’s Komatsuza company in 2013, based on the brief notes he had left behind.
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