Chopso: Visas and Virtue (short)

Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara proved paperwork could be heroic. As the ranking Japanese diplomat in Lithuania, he issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees that his government did not want issued. Throughout it all, his wife Yukiko was right there beside him. If you think this sounds like Oscar bait, you are probably more right than you know. The Sugihara story was dramatized in Chris Tashima’s Academy Award winning short film Visas and Virtue (trailer here), which marks its twentieth anniversary with its streaming release today on Chopso.

Sugihara’s rocky diplomatic career had a fascinating third act in Berlin, after he was summarily reassigned from Kaunas, but it is the visas that earned him a place in the Righteous Among Nations, so that is what Tashima logically focuses on. As the film opens, Sugihara’s hand is literally cramping from writing visas. He has also received another cease-and-desist cable from the foreign ministry, causing him great concern for his family’s future. Fortunately, the compassionate Yukiko is there to bolster his spirits and not so subtly coach the applicants before their interviews.

Despite his weariness, Sugihara and his wife will form an especially deep bond with Nathan and Helena Rosen, due to the particular circumstances of each couple. In fact, the encounter spurs Sugihara to redouble his efforts, writing many, many more visas for the applicants seen in montage, one of whom is portrayed by Hanni Vogelweid, a surviving Sugihara visa-holder and technical advisor on the film.

It is easy to see why Virtue won the Oscar, but it is hard to understand how it did not lead to high profile feature work for Tashima, who also starred as Sugihara. Adapted by Tashima and Tom Donaldson from Tim Toyoma’s stage play, Virtue is sensitive and humane, but it never drags. Tashima and Susan Fukuda are terrific together as the Sugiharas. Hiro Narita’s mostly black-and-white cinematography is also absolutely beautiful. It is a shame nobody thought to package it with revival screenings of Schindler’s List, but its never too late.

Tashima has made several short films of considerable cultural and historical significance and starred in several more. Unfortunately, distribution challenges and feature-prejudices conspire against short form cinema, preventing work like Virtue from establishing the place they deserve in our collective cinematic consciousness. If Chopso can bring more films like this to a wider audience that would be a happy development. Highly recommended, Visas and Virtue is now available on Chopso.

Kew Gardens ’17: Persona Non Grata

Japanese diplomat Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara was forbidden entry by the Soviets, expelled by the Germans, and demoted by his own foreign ministry. Those events certainly buttress a favorable judgement from history, but they did not do his career any favors. Sugihara was ill-advisedly principled throughout his diplomatic tenure, but his decision to issue travel visas to Jewish refugees while serving as the Japanese consul in Lithuania earned him recognition as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. Sugihara’s pre-war exploits and wartime heroics are chronicled in Cellin Gluck’s Persona Non Grata: The Chiune Sugihara Story (trailer here), which screens during the first ever Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.

Fluent in Russian and well educated in Russian history, Sugihara aspired to a Russian posting. However, his intelligence gathering in Manchuria, with respect to the disposition of the Northern Manchuria Railroad, bitterly antagonized the Soviets. As a result, he was declared persona non grata before he was even posted to Russia. Instead, Sugihara was dispatched to Lithuania, a convenient vantage-point for watching the Soviets.

Initially, Kaunas is quite pleasant for Sugihara and his wife Yukiko. He quickly comes to an arrangement with Pesh, a maybe not-so-former Polish intelligence officer, who helps Sugihara keep tabs on the Russians and Germans, in exchange for the occasional travel document. By the time Jewish refugees, primarily but not exclusively from Poland start flooding Kaunas, Sugihara heads the only still functioning quasi-neutral consulate. Although the Tripartite Pact is an acknowledged inevitability, Sugihara starts issuing travel visas to the refugees, as quickly as he and his staff can stamp them.

Not surprisingly, the Foreign Ministry is less than ecstatic over his actions, but they transfer him to a sensitive posting in Germany anyway. Obviously, saving thousands of lives is a big deal, but there is even more to his story. In fact, the Prussian section is unexpectedly fascinating, because it offers up a very different perspective on the War.

Through Sugihara’s Cassandra-like warnings to his superiors, Gluck and co-screenwriters Tetsuro Kamata and Hiromichi Matsuo suggest Japan always considered Russia their natural enemy, which made the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact awkward, but ironically desirable. According to the film, they were counting on Germany’s help against the Americans and British in the Pacific, but when Hitler attacked Russia, it consigned them to facing the Yanks (and Brits) alone, thereby sealing their fate. Apparently, his analysis of German intentions did not sit well with the National Socialists, who also declared Sugihara persona non grata.

Admittedly, a figure like Sugihara would be intimidating to portray, but Toshiaki Karasawa largely plays it safe (and rather stiffly). However, Koyuki is terrific as Yukiko, Sugihara’s wife and his conscience when he needs it. She perfectly delivers a pivotal exchange—too quiet and humanistic to be called a big speech—that could earn her award consideration if anyone picks up Gluck’s film. Borys Szyc is also compulsively watchable as the slightly roguish but deeply earnest Pesh.

The fact that Persona Non Grata has not screened more widely at festivals is absolutely baffling. After all, it addresses the Holocaust, as well as a past refugee crisis, which offers the appeal of contemporary relevancy. It also happens to be a good film. Unfortunately, it might be too smart for its own good. Highly recommended for the heart and mind, Persona Non Grata screens this Wednesday afternoon (8/9) as part of the inaugural Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.