History

The Angels of Testimony

Released

2019-01-08

Runtime

47 min

Performance score

Not rated

This film centers on an interview with Hajime Kondo, a 99-year-old veteran of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and one of the few former soldiers to publicly testify to the war crimes he committed. When asked whether he still remembers these testimonies, it becomes clear that age has largely erased his recollection of the events themselves. The interview footage is juxtaposed with performances by eleven Japanese youths, aged 16 to 26, who have memorized Kondo’s original testimony word for word. Shown as two looping sequences of different lengths, the film generates ever-changing combinations, probing how histories of violence persist—or disappear—across personal and collective memory.