만주영화협회의 ‘계민영화(啓民映画)’연구

A Study on Keimin Eiga, the Documentary of Manturian Motion Picture Association: Focused on the Nation Building Project

This paper focuses on Keimin Eiga, the documentary genre of Man-ei,Manturian Motion Picture Association. Keimin Eiga means enlightenment film and its mode is thought to have originated in Bunka Eiga, Japanese cultural film which was named after German Kulturfilm. I analyse several Keimin Eiga films here, which are related to the nation building project of Manchukuo, to show the matter in the true light of Manchukuo images imagined by Japanese colonialists or represented by the Japanese empire. Manzhou Tikuo Kuopingfa, which means Manchurian Military Service Law,was made to propagandize the Law and to publicize its enrolment procedure and also the contents of military training. Despite its purpose to explain the law lucidly, this film disposes inadvertently the paradox of Manchukuo itself and its military law: there was no such Manchukuo people because it was a puppet state. The other two films, Lianhe Xieyihui,the United Conference, Womende Quanlian, Our United Conference, are fake documentaries to propagandize that the nationwide united conference was a legislative organ to convey the will of those who were governed to those who govern. In this limited space, I try to show the gap between the slogans of Manchukuo described in Keimin Eiga and the reality of it through giving as possible as many examples. The bottom line is that the deliberate lie of Keimin Eiga exposed inadvertently the contradiction of the nation and the its national policy of Gojoku Kyouwa, harmony between five ethenic groups, and Nichiman Ittai, One Japan and Manchukuo.