The title Green Jail is presented literally in this poetic, slow-paced and somewhat disjointed documentary. Somber shots of stunning, lush greenery frame the scenes throughout the film, following the final years of Yoshiko Hashima, the sole Taiwanese remnant of the notorious coal mining enterprise that once thrived on Japan’s remote Iriomote Island, off the east coast of Taiwan.
Hashima, who first moved to this “island of death” at age 10, died at 92 in 2018, bringing to a close this little-known chapter of Taiwanese on the island. Not much actually happens in the film, but it’s poignant and visually stunning, a fitting ode to the ghosts of the past.
The perpetually grumpy yet endearing Hashima rambles about her family history in a mixture of Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) and Japanese while carrying on her daily tasks in the idyllic village, her only companion a young, eccentric American tenant who spends his free time helping her with tasks, playing video games and participating in cultural activities. Hashima repeats and retells some events, and parts of the history is left somewhat unclear, but it underscores a life resigned to fate and hardship in a strange land that she is forever bound to.
Photo courtesy of Hope Marketing Entertaiment
The dead silence of the surroundings starkly contrasts to the days when it was known as the “Green Jail,” where workers mostly from Japan’s then-colonies of Taiwan and Korea toiled under harsh conditions, many never to return home. The past is told through audio and video footage of Hashima’s adopted father, who recruited Taiwanese to work here, as well as surreal, recreated scenes of the difficulties of mining life. The ghosts (literally) of the miners, many trapped here due to morphine addiction and debt, still haunt the forests, and, as the film progresses, more and more appear, standing mournfully among the greenery.
This is a great artistic leap for director Huang Yin-yu (黃胤毓), whose previous film, After Spring, the Tamaki Family… (海的彼端), dealt with Taiwanese who settled in neighboring Ishigaki island, both of which are much closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan.
That film was more of a standard format, heart-warming documentary about 88-year-old Tamayo Tamaki’s last trip back to Taiwan. Cheerful and hilariously sarcastic, Tamaki is surrounded by family members who grapple with their Taiwanese heritage (one of her grandsons is a well-known rock star in Japan), resulting in a story that pretty much tells itself.
Photo courtesy of Hope Marketing Entertaiment
Hashima’s tale requires a lot more treatment by the director, and the although Green Jail assumes a completely different tone and pace, the themes of women enduring a lifetime of hardship and discrimination in a foreign land connect the two projects. Apparently, a third film is in the making.
There’s significant focus placed on the American tenant Louis, who like Hashima, moved to Japan with his father at a young age. It seems jarring at first, but perhaps it’s meant to be so as to contrast his experience as a modern, Western male immigrant whose family cut ties with their homeland for completely different reasons than the Hashimas.
The historical recreation is a bit awkward in places as it straddles reality and the absurd, and doesn’t all fit into the storyline smoothly. But much of it brilliantly depicts the era’s violent atmosphere — necessary to break up the monotony of the present.
Overall, the documentary is a contemplative and moving elegy, and it’s fortunate that Huang was able to find Hashima before her death would forever bury her story.
For those who want to learn more, Huang turned his seven years of research on the Iriomote mines into a book, which shot to the top spot of the local history bestseller list on Amazon Japan the week of it’s release. It will surely fill in the gaps in the film, and for those who don’t read Chinese or Japanese, this reviewer will explore it in an upcoming Taiwan in Time column.
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