Unknown Soldiers is an experimental documentary, made up of shots of historic events appertaining to the relationship between Japan and the United States. It focuses on World War Two and According to Veronika Soul the film is base don the question of how much our view of people and also of historic events is determined by the cultural context in which we live and the language we speak.Soul has used the archive material in a poetic narrative structure, alongside letters from children who survived Hiroshima and video letters sent home to his mother by a Japanese tourist in New York. The documentary shots are for example of the evacuation of Shanghai, the defence of the city by the soldiers of the Kwomintang, American propaganda films and everyday life in Japan between the twenties and fifties.Unknown Soldiers is an experimental documentary about language and cultural identity but also a fascinating visual experience in which language, poetry, song and culture old and new are moulded together in an intriguing way.
