I was watching City of Life and Death recently, a rather grim movie about the Nanjing Massacre. It’s a powerful piece, shot entirely in black and white, like an old set of photos come to life. One particularly disturbing scene has one of the protagonists, a Japanese soldier, march a group of Chinese POWs to their deaths, and as they trudge along the man watches in increasingly numbed horror as his comrades unleash absolute evil on civilians in the streets: firing squads, severed heads hanging from trees, young girls tied up and frogmarched by rough soldiers, a dead young woman sprawled on the ground, naked and bruised, with a noose around her neck. Continue reading “on honouring the dead” →