The Burmese Harp (1956) - Directed by Kon Ichikawa

After recently watching Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain, and being completely blown away by its tone and perspective on war, it was with great anticipation that I quickly sought out his other highly regarded film, The Burmese Harp. Harp was made 3 years prior, but it is vastly different in tone, look, and overall impression. Yet it is no less effective or moving an experience. In fact, it is a film of great humanism and compassion, which is almost polar opposite from Fires on the Plain’s hellish view of war. It’s fascinating that a director can make such different films on the same subject within such a short period of time.

The Burmese Harp follows a band of Japanese soldiers in Burma, late in the war in 1945, who have formed a special bond over their ability to sing songs of home and camaraderie, and who also have acquired a harp. A private named Mizushima has learned how to play it along with their renditions. After the Japanese surrender to a group of British soldiers and the war is over, the Private is sent on a short mission to convince a group of soldiers, who are hunkered into a mountain fortress, to surrender. He is unable to convince them and ends up in the midst of shelling by the British. Mizushima is thought dead, but is in fact the only survivor of the battle. He acquires a monk’s robe as a disguise, and begins a journey that will take him to spiritual enlightenment. He achieves this through a profound desire to bury dead soldiers. He is adopted by a group of monks and seems to disappear from all traces of his previous life as a soldier, until some chance encounters with his troupe bring memories and experiences flooding back.

Ichikawa’s film, although in 1.33 aspect ratio, is nearly as expressive as Fires on the Plain. Cinematography by Minoru Yokoyama contains beautifully framed moments that are arranged in montage. I often recalled Soviet cinema here and think of Eisenstein or even the work of Kolotozov who released The Cranes Are Flying right about the same time. There is wonderful use of low-angle camera shots, and soft lighting that illuminates faces in the foreground while the background is darkened. There’s also the terrific balance between close-ups, medium range, and long shots. In fact, balance throughout the film is key. There is a balance between ugliness and beauty, between pain and healing. Both the elements of the script and the visuals themselves seem to feed into these opposing features.

What I especially loved was the meditative tone, which is heartfelt, genuine and offers up some very moving setpieces. I think of the moment on the beach where Mizushima is working solo to bury a large pile of dead soldiers with a group of onlookers seemingly astonished that anyone would do such a thing. Yet his inspirational efforts cause the rest of them to pitch in. Also there is that spectacular moment near the end where Mizushima’s soldier troupe reads a letter aloud that he wrote, explaining everything he is doing and why. It is a great moment of compassion and outpouring of emotion that is thoroughly earned. Ichikawa breeds a sense of redemption and hope into this film that is vastly different from the following Fires on the Plain. In fact, this also has to be one of the most spiritually satisfying films I’ve ever seen. Rare is the film that is able to touch something of the soul in this particular way. 

Fires on the Plain (1959) - Directed by Kon Ichikawa

Of all the war films I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain. If it’s possible to have no real battle sequences and yet still make the most gruesome war film even made, I think Ichikawa came really close to encompassing the all-out devastation of war. It is a picture of war that examines the micro level, yet is able to paint with broad strokes. It also lays before us, the ugliness of humanity reduced to nothing but instincts and in so doing, reflects the darkest side in all of us. It is as bleak and unrelenting as any war film I’ve ever seen.

Ichikawa’s film concerns the plight of a private Tamura (Eiji Funakoshi) on a Philippine Island in February of 1945, who is stricken with tuberculosis. He is forced to leave his squad to seek medical treatment at a field hospital, and is instructed if he does not get treatment there, that he is to commit suicide. He is denied such treatment at the hospital, and decides to wait things out there. Meanwhile, the allies bomb the hospital and the medics flee, leaving Tamura to traverse the countryside by himself. His journey is a memorable one. One that takes him through abandoned villages, over war ravaged mountainsides, leading to encounters with various rag-tag ensembles of half-starved and mostly crazed soldiers. The plot delves into the darkest sides of the human condition, where the option for heroism doesn’t even exist.

Here I want to discuss the astounding camera work in this film. Setsuo Kobayashi was principal cinematographer behind the camera for this starkly filmed masterpiece. His use of the mega wide-screen compositions is as jaw-dropping as any I’ve seen in this type of genre work. He’ll place the action at the far side of the left or right and slowly allow the figure to work his way toward the middle. There are bravura camera movements and tracking shots on the sides of mountains, the close-ups of the malnourished faces, the editing of the bloody action sequences. It is one of the best photographed war films I’ve ever seen, filled with memorable images. Even the images of the actors themselves is something to behold. Apparently Ichikawa kept his actors from eating much during the filming. Their gaunt and lifeless performances are exactly right here….removing all emotion from the proceedings and making it feel like pure hell on earth.

This is a portrait of war that is bleak and nearly post-apocalyptic. At times it almost resembles sci-fi in its absurd surrealism, but it is grounded in bloody violence and harsh language that reminds us that this is all too real. This film exists somewhere between Sam Fuller’s gritty realism in The Steel Helmet, Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic imagery from Ivan’s Childhood and Coppola’s sense for epic absurdity in Apocalypse Now. Somehow Ichikawa’s film is able to weave these sorts of elements together, without forcing anything, as he presents this story of survival to us. Ichikawa was apparently emboldened to make this film from the time he witnessed the dropping of the Atom Bomb. This inspiration can clearly be felt as the devastation of human body and human soul is examined here in all its gory details.