Film Review: “On Paper Wings”

By Anne Marie DiStefano

The Portland Tribune, Aug 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Fallen Japanese balloon bombs were reconstructed by the U.S. military for research purposes.

Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Portland filmmaker Ilana Sol’s impressive documentary debut is a look at a little-known chapter in the saga of World War II.

Towards the end of the war, desperate Japanese strategists dreamed up a low-tech plan to instill fear in the American population. They began manufacturing paper balloons loaded with explosives and set them free on the jet stream. Most were lost at sea, but a few made it to North America, where what little damage they did was covered up by the U.S. government until after the war.

This intriguing bit of forgotten history is just the starting point for “On Paper Wings.” Sol covers a lot of ground in a clear and efficient narrative that ranges from Tule Lake, Calif. where Japanese Americans were interned during the war, to Japan, where schoolgirls were conscripted into the balloon-making service, and then back to Bly, Ore., site of the only deaths due to enemy action on the U.S. mainland during the war.

Interweaving the tragedies of Japanese and Americans, Sol succeeds in making a powerful point about war and forgiveness. She brings that long-ago, faraway cataclysm right into our backyards, and although this film will be of special interest to Oregonians, it deserves a much broader audience.

“On Paper Wings” plays as a double feature with “Passing Poston,” a film about four Japanese-Americans trying to come to terms with their internment in the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona. Sol will host Q&A sessions at all screenings.

12:15 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 9-10; 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 11-12; additional screenings to follow; Hollywood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215, http://www.hollywoodtheatre.org/engaging/index.html, $6.50

annemariedistefano@portlandtribune.com

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