WILLIAM FLANIGAN
Viewed on Streaming. Restoration = ten (10) stars; cinematography = nine (9) stars; subtitles = eight (8) stars; score = seven (7) stars. Director Kon Ichikawa provides a grisly series of scenes depicting the hell of modern warfare for the abandoned, losing side as WWII is ending. The story, as such, is set in the Philippines (but exteriors are filmed in Southern Japan) and depicts three soldiers whose paths often cross while each is left to his own devices desperately trying to survive (moment-to-moment) and escape starvation. These protagonists are defeated and sick/injured infantrymen no longer (if ever) heroic or patriotic, but simply draftees looking for a way out of hell be it via: surrender (depicted by the Director as not an option offered by the Americans); suicide (often shown); or POW camp if found wounded, but still alive by American medics (suggested by the Director). There is another option: indefinably hiding and surviving on "monkey meat" in a jungle where there are no monkeys. The photo play is not so much a story as a strung-together collection of statements on the horrors of war in a semi-documentary format (see below). Here and there a bit of black humor emerges. Even in this hell hole, some culturally inculcated Japanese traditions survive, as depicted by Ichikawa, such as a semblance of politeness between those of the same (or unknown) rank. The three leading actors deliver excellent performances. Actor Eiji Funakoshi is a standout with "unusual" facial expressions that add greatly to the feeling of expect-the-unexpected as events unfold. The Director occasionally resorts to voice over for scene "clarification," but this low-cost expository crutch seems to diminish rather than enhance. The movie could benefit from some judicial re-editing. It is a bit too long, and drags now and then. Re-editing might also allow the impact of the film's war horrors to progressively build rather than continuously run flat out. (Viewers can become desensitized to subsequent war horrors having been exposed to so many packed into what has already occurred.) The fires (actually near-perfect vertical columns of smoke) are never fully explained (but some seem to be caused by farmers burning post-harvest waste). Also never fully explained is the film's ending. (Since two principal characters have already died, is the death of the third protagonist now required for symmetrical, loop-closing story reasons?) Cinematography (wide screen, black and white) and lighting are excellent. Ichikawa confidently and fully fills the wide screen providing an epoch, panoramic feel. Black and white photography lends a documentary polish and seems appropriate for the subject matter. The score initially adds to this epoch approach, but, unfortunately, is progressively diminished on the sound track as the film proceeds. Subtitles lengths and time-on-screen are excellent; text font seems to have been carefully selected to be especially easy to read (which is usually not the case in Japanese-language movies)! Highly recommended, but disturbing to watch. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
popcorninhell
When people think post-war Japanese cinema, they automatically think of Akira Kurosawa. His exported samurai epics have done a good job creating a sense of history, nobility and grace among the art cinema crowd. Yet arguably more important to Japan's unique cinematic history during that era, are the humanistic war stories brought to life by the likes of Masaki Kobayashi, Nagisa Oshima and Kon Ichikawa. Comprising a portion of the Japanese New Wave, these war dramas challenged their viewers head-on, illustrating the ugliness of war in all it's absurdity and horror. These movies were noble in their own way by angrily confronting the attitudes tolerated by Japan during it's peak nationalist period. Fires on the Plain is just as incendiary as it's title would suggest and serves as a prime example of such a film. It may also just be the most engaging and accessible war tale Japan has ever produced.Set during the closing days of Japan's dominance in the Philippines, our sick, fatigued and jaded hero, Private Tamura attempts to survive the on-coming slaughter. Tamura is forced out of his unit due to tuberculosis; if he's not well enough to dig trenches than he's useless according to his superiors. He treks to the hospital just past the hills only to be rebuffed by the hospital who tells him if he can walk, he's not sick. Before he can return and presumably commit suicide via grenade, Tamura's unit is wiped out in a fierce battle with allied forces. He then wonders aimlessly through the countryside staving starvation, fatigue, death and worse still, fellow brothers in arms.If Kurosawa is considered the Spielberg of Japan than director Kon Ichikawa is it's Martin Scorsese. Known less for an all-permeating thesis that seeps into his oeuvre, Ichikawa gives his work an idiosyncratic style and a visceral veneer. Throughout his career Ichikawa was known for taking on all popular genres, all of which balanced his knack for realism and expressionism. His worlds always have a beautiful wholeness and lets the pathos from each situation dig into the audiences cranium through all sides. Sometimes he accomplishes this with shock, other times with a mischievous sense of humor. One such iconic moment happens in Fires on the Plain when a platoon of soldiers march upon a pair of jungle boots. One soldier swiftly puts them on and discards his own, the next soldier takes the previous soldier's boots, and so on and so forth until Tamura looks down on the tattered remains of the last guy's boots, takes his off and keeps walking barefooted.There are many more scenes of contradicting sentiments occupying the same earnest frame. We as the audience must decide whether we should laugh or cry or both yet we never feel the need to look away. There's a dark sense of realism that makes Fires on the Plain stand out from other contemporary works such as The Human Condition Trilogy (1959-1961). The realism, tinged with an expressionistic flare keeps us engrossed; pensively hoping Tamura and his fellow soldiers don't do the unthinkable.As things become more desperate and deprived on the island of Leyte, the true intentions of the film start to soar with devastating economy. The film was adapted from Shohei Ooka's novel of the same name. Much ado was made at the time about Ichikawa's radical ending change which is surprisingly antithetical to the traditional Hollywood ending we're all so drearily used to. With Ichikawa's ending however there is no absolution, no completion, no sigh of relief. Much like All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) the film's resolution comes with a simple message about the inhumanity of war.Fires on the Plain is a frightfully good film that tells it's story through imagery both stark, maddening and sublime. Powerful in every sober sense, Ichikawa should be on everyone's short list of most important Japanese filmmakers. He's got a style full of contradiction yet permeating with an excess of feeling. I promise that once you've seen this provocative, bleak, heart-wrenching picture, you won't soon forget it.
tieman64
1853. US Navyman Commodore Matthew Perry makes his way into Japan and forcibly opens the country up to international trade. After two and a half centuries of self-imposed, peaceful isolation, Japan henceforth begins emulating Western powers. After the Meiji Restorations of 1868, Japan not only conclusively shifts from a feudal society to a market economy, but embarks on an endeavour to assimilate Western ideas, technological advances and customs. To the chagrin of the Western Empires, it also spends the next few years aggressively expanding into neighbouring territories, encroaching upon Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Burma and the Philippines, all countries which had themselves been taken over by Europeans and Americans. The apple in Japan's eye is China, though, which Russia, France, Germany, England and the US are busy dividing between themselves via "Open Door Policies". These policies grant multiple international powers access to China, all to the detriment of China itself.Ticked off that the big Imperialists aren't letting Japan get down to some sweet Imperialism of its own, Japan launches the First Sino-Japanese War (1894) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). Ironically, these expansions are funded by British and American bankers (Jacob Schiff famously provided 200 million in loans), to such an extent that Japan's outstanding foreign loan indebtedness grows from near zero in 1896 to 421 million yen in 1904 and then 2600 million yen in 1913. After about two decades of further pressure cooking, a complex cocktail of forces and/or contradictions eventually lead to all the world's major nations getting their collective grooves on. In Japan's case, a mixture of nationalism, exceptionalism, racism, stupidity, economic competition, mounting debts, the need to open up foreign markets to prevent local markets from collapsing (historial J.A Hobson would famously call capitalist oligarchy, rather than national pride, the "taproot of imperialism"), blockades, Western bullying and sheer confusion leads to a state of Total War. The end result of WW2? The two Imperialist upstarts – Japan and Germany – get bombed back to the stone age, whilst the old Imperialist Empires go broke and are forced to scale back their domains. The United States emerges as top dog.Two of the major war films in Japanese post-war cinema were "Fires on the Plain" and "The Burmese Harp", both by director Kon Ichikawa. Released in 1956, "Harp" follows Private Mizushima, a lowly member of Inouye Company. Mizushima plays a lute, whose music becomes Ichikawa's metaphor for a humanity which is suffocated during war time. The film's awash with bleak landscapes, craggy, war-torn and steeped in death, a canvas which the lute attempts to hold back with an aesthetic of its own. But it's no use. "Soil is blood-red," a title-card reads, "so are rocks.""Harp" finds Ichikawa drawing parallels between Japanese and British soldiers, the fighting class on either side identical in their humanity. Its climax points to Japanese concentration camps, the scientific barbarism of the atomic bombs and finally to monastic Buddhism, Mizushima's newfound path. It's a path which divides Mizushima from both his comrades and an increasingly secular Japan. If warfare remains the music of the gun, Mizushima's Buddhism embodies the music of the lute, an aural flame which he dedicates his life to fanning."Harp's" overriding tone is one of sadness. "Fires on the Plain" (1959), however, is suffused with blunt cruelty. It begins with a slap to the face and then the introduction of Private Tamura, a young man stationed in the Philippines. Tamura, we learn, has been ordered to kill himself with a grenade if he fails to admit himself to a hospital for healing, an absurd situation which informs the rest of Ichikawa's film. Whilst Tamura's countrymen prefer death to the dishonour of capture, Tamura rejects the nationalism and indomitable Yamato-damashii spirit of the army. He sees no dishonour in staying alive, and will do anything to survive. "Fire" thus offers the reverse of the spirituality and positive affirmation of Ichikawa's "Harp". It stresses the corporeal, the physical, its tone is nihilistic, and Tamura will cross any barrier in the name of self preservation, unlike Mizushima, who challenges himself and others to live humanely even within evil circumstances. Lost in a nightmarish odyssey, Tamura stumbles upon burning hospitals, corpses and vampire-like soldiers who cannibalise flesh, his narrative serving to undermine any measure of value or nobility wrongly ascribed to warfare. The film climaxes, in a scene evocative of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One", with Tamura shot whilst trying to surrender to an American soldier. His life's been lost for nought.Aesthetically, "Harp" and "Fire" are similar. Both are melancholic, at times shocking, and carefully juggle impressive wide screen photography with blunt close-ups of haggard faces. Both also feature dated scores, dip into excessive sentimentality and feature soldiers who are more dirty, dispirited and exhausted than was typical of Western war films of the era. This is not surprising. Before the revisionist and/or counterculture movements of the 1960s, British and American war films tended to be upbeat. Even Lewis Milestone ("All Quiet On the Western Front"), would get roped into directing gun-ho flicks ("Pork Chop Hill", "Halls of Montezuma"). Italian, Polish, French and Japanese war films, meanwhile, most of which fell under the umbrella of neorealism, operated under a completely different sensibility. Indeed, directors like Masaki Kobayashi, Andrzej Wajda and Rossellini were directing whole anti-war trilogies. 8/10 – Worth one viewing. See "Paths of Glory", Suleiman's "The Time that Remains" and Kobayashi's "The Human Condition".
