Library Wars Review
August 2, 2013, San Francisco Japanese Film Festival—The US premiere of Library Wars displayed the conflicts between free expression and objectionable materials. The film is based on the novel “Toshokan Senso” by Hiro Arikawa. Director Shinsuke Sato put together a solid adventure, love story in this movie adaption.
The setting is in the near future in Japan, where the government has passed a law that allows armed forces, called the Book Defense League, to find and destroy objectionable printed materials. To oppose this movement, the Library Force is the militarized counterpart on the side of the libraries and open inquiry. The Library Force manages libraries and has combat units that fight the government attack troops. The Library Force holds some principles as important: privacy, confidentiality, the freedom to choose, and freedom from censorship.
The heroine, Iku Kasahara, starts her involvement by trying to buy a book, just as the censors are taking all of the books from a bookstore. A Library Force person declares the books approved for libraries, and sends the book burners off. Kasaahara then decides that she wants to be on the Library Force to meet her hero and to allow others to read anything.
At this point, the film becomes a Japanese “GI Jane”, where the gruff drill instructor Atsushi Dojo keeps pushing Kasahara to try to get her to quit. After completing basic training, she and Hikaru Tezuka, the son of a high-level librarian, are promoted to further training for the combat unit, under Dojo. Kasahara is the first woman to get into the combat unit.
In addition to the combat functions, they have to learn librarianship, retrieval of restricted materials from an underground vault, and basic check-in and check-out operations. Kasahara struggles through all of this while competing with Tezuka in every aspect of their training. Through all of this Kasahara’s roommate Atsuko Shibashaki offers support and behavioral tips. Kashara tries to stop a book destruction event, and the rest of the combat unit helps her stop the Defense League. She gives a little boy his book, starting another cycle.
The ensuing battle scenes are very tight, like an Occupy protest with guns. The encounters are highly stylized, with formal presentation of charges and demands, and equally legalistic responses. Confrontations are scheduled and enacted. When a industrialist, who holds the original laws and early documentation dies, the big battles is set up. The Library Force has to move the documents from the museum to the library , and the government troops are trying to prevent the transfer, because of some highly incriminating documents in the trove.
While the combat units are getting ready for the transfer, Kasahara is put on a security detail to protect the leader who is going to the funeral. Both Kasahara and the leader are kidnapped and taken to an abandoned bookstore. After the battle is called due to the hostage situation, Dojo goes to rescue the two prisoners, but is highly conflicted, because Kasahara said that she thinks of the person who saved her book was a prince. Dojo was that person and doesn’t want to meet those expectations.
The cinematography and lighting were very good. The music score added to the sense of immersion, and helped to fil in the large canvass. The action sequences held together, but promised more than they delivered. The romantic parts didn’t come through well even though “His Girl Friday” showed how to stage a chaste, but tension-filled scene. The idea of two government armies fighting in an urban environment seems a little out of place, as the likelihood of collateral damage seems to overshadow the formalities and structured nature of the conflicts.
