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In the coming month or so, I have tons of Ichikawa on my plate. And, as if they were responding to this thread itself, Midnight Eye weighs in on Ichikawa's Makioka Sisters and it obviously doesn't sit too well with Jasper Sharp. I have yet to see this film, unfortunately, but hopefully will soon.

For me, Burmese Harp is pretty horrible, but Fires on the Plain is an absolute masterpiece and this disc has been a long time coming... As suggested earlier, Ichikawa is perhaps the most wry and cynical major Japanese director of the period. If one is seeking a Hollywood contemporary, Robert Aldrich is perhaps the most similar in tone.

DVD Beaver reviews Fires on the Plain (from the Essential Art House)

I received Fires from UPS today, thanks to DVDPlanet's abominably early shipping (indeed, its actually the disc!). The transfer is just as strong, if not stronger, than the Essential Janus box, judging from the Beaver. I haven't watched the extras yet, but they seem to last a very modest 30 minutes in all, and we have a booklet with a single essay, the booklet being about 16 pages.

PLAIN is a duplicate of the transfer in the ARTHOUSE box (not a bad thing since this was a nice transfer), plus CC supplements. Beev..

BURMESE HARP LOOKS BEAUTIFUL. Hear hear!

Absolutely glowing reviews for these films on beaver. These have me the most excited of anything in the past few months, especially since I really don't know anything about them.

I preordered these two films some days ago. The Burmese Harp is one of my favorite Japanese films. Hopefully An Actor's Revenge will be released soon.

I just got Fires on the Plain today thanks to (very) early shipping. A very good movie, especially in terms of visuals -- the cinematography is gorgeous, even at the most horrifying and ugly moments. The film does a good job of communicating a real sense of horror and confusion and senselessness, as this lost soldier wanders from one brutal moment to the next. So as a "horrors of war" movie, it's definitely up there.

I was also very struck by one shot towards the beginning, in which a static landscape shot is suddenly interrupted by the intrusion of a soldier's head, in jarring close-up. It reminded me quite a bit of the famous similar shot from the opening of The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly.

I just watched "The Burmese Harp" this morning and absolutely loved it. The mood that Ichikawa creates is so powerful and consistent from beginning to end, that I was completely brought into the story and emotionally overwhelmed. I love the way he dealt with the anti-war themes, friendship, loyalty, and the power of music. I'm terrible at clearly expressing my thoughts about these things, but it's been a long time since I've been that transfixed by a movie. I can't wait to watch "Fires On The Plain".

I'm interested to see if it is possible for anyone to adore both movies.

I suppose you could say it was quite an achievement for Ichikawa to have made two war films that are so entirely different in tone, sentiment and ideology (if Fires on the Plain is Aldrich, then Burmese Harp is Spielberg).

Nothing wrote:I'm interested to see if it is possible for anyone to adore both movies.

Even though I was more touched emotionally by the Burmese Harp, I was overwhelmed by the perfect composition of both, and this typically has a greater impact on me over time. I am already curios about a second viewing, and, even though I typically do not watch sports, now I will have to see Tokyo Olympiad as well.

Nothing wrote:I'm interested to see if it is possible for anyone to adore both movies.

I love both, but if I had to pick, I like FOTP more. I just hope this means that An Actor's Revenge is coming eventually, that's my favorite.

Der Müde Tod wrote:...even though I typically do not watch sports, now I will have to see Tokyo Olympiad as well.

Prepare to have your mind blown -- it's one of the most beautiful films ever made (and I despise sports and athletes).

DVD Talk review

The transfer does beg one question. In its original theatrical release in Japan, The Burmese Harp was first exhibited in two parts. The Burmese Harp - Part 1 (subtitled "Nostalgia Volume") opened on January 21, 1956 with a running time of 63 minutes. Part two debuted three weeks later, on February 12th, with a running time of 81 minutes. Apparently the 116-minute cut of the film, the same one that is on Criterion's DVD, opened simultaneously in other Japanese markets. Whether this two-part version still exists, or what additional footage it might contain, is unknown.

Surprised nobody's mention Akira Ifukube's contribution to HARP. He really pushes those scenes with the monk wandering through the corpse strewn wasteland into pure, sublimely mysterious poetry. I always loved this guy, despite his being sucked into so much GJOIRA & much of the sci-slop that Ishiro Honda did, but his scores always prop those films up.

That said, there are parts of HARP where he repeats himself, almost totally duplicating his work in the orig GOJIRA during the hospital scenes, that tragic slow dirge.. very affecting stuff anyhoo.

I'm still flipping over that asshole ex-filmmmaker gunman who shot up my old Bleecker st nabe... they killed him half a block from my old doorstep.

I was surprised at how similar the main musical figure from Harp is to one used almost as frequently in Malick's Thin Red Line. In fact, several elements (and even entire scenes) seem to be "borrowed" liberally.

Luckily, Malick doesn't borrow the cheap nationalism and sentimentality

Nothing wrote:Luckily, Malick doesn't borrow the cheap nationalism and sentimentality

Ouch! I'm wondering where the "cheap nationalism" statement comes from. Part of the reason I loved this so much is that it is devoid of political statements (or, if they are in there, I missed them).

I don't buy that this film verges on nationalism-- Joan Mellen can go to hell; Germans, Japanese, Italians, etc, all had a right to mourn their squandered youth despite their alleged en masse brainwashing or being hoodwinked into atrocity. If a young man, after the war is over cannot according to the victor look across a plain filled with his own wasted dead and lament the stupidity of his Japanese masters in reckless causing of the catastrophe-- because some (or even all) of those dead engaged in atrocity-- then the victor becomes equally as fascistic as the wartime loser. Negating the value of human life, the need to mourn, to recognize the value of the individual and the tragedy of senseless conflict, turns the victor into a mass bloc of assholes. We kicked the shit out of our own Nam war vets for My Lai and gave them a silent return and have been regretting our error since.

On one hand I look at kids in Iraq & say "assholes.. if they die fighting for a rotten cause they volunteered for it's their own fault", but these kids are young, want to believe their prez knows better, some are dumb, and heaps of misspent youth is something to lament no matter what angle you look at it.

HerrSchreck wrote:Joan Mellen can go to hell

I believe she's changed her tune on a lot of her more politically opinionated stances taken within her 70s work. Anyone who brushes aside both Okamoto Kihachi and Jissouji Akio in one trivial sentence, is someone you can only take with a grain of salt.

I think a good comparison for the film is The Human Condition Trilogy, where responsibility for the war is placed squarely on the backs of the near feudal leadership, and how an ordinary Japanese was swept away by their horrible decisions. In Burmese Harp is seems that the Japanese individual is somewhat at fault, or at least partly responsible, if not for the war then for it's outcome. There's really no other way to read that last scene on the boat, except as an explication of Mizushima's, and the audience's, war guilt. As the one soldier puts it, you wonder how the captain is going to explain this to Mizushima's family, and I believe that's a metaphor for having to explain to ordinary citizens what happened during the war, and why, which to a number of them would seem a daunting and dreadful prospect.

As for the nationalism, cheap or expensive, I'll need more persuading. I'm sure that Abe's "neocon" styled government wouldn't be caught dead watching this film, and that's a good sign.

HerrSchreck wrote:I don't buy that this film verges on nationalism-- Joan Mellen can go to hell; Germans, Japanese, Italians, etc, all had a right to mourn their squandered youth despite their alleged en masse brainwashing or being hoodwinked into atrocity. If a young man, after the war is over cannot according to the victor look across a plain filled with his own wasted dead and lament the stupidity of his Japanese masters in reckless causing of the catastrophe-- because some (or even all) of those dead engaged in atrocity-- then the victor becomes equally as fascistic as the wartime loser. Negating the value of human life, the need to mourn, to recognize the value of the individual and the tragedy of senseless conflict, turns the victor into a mass bloc of assholes. We kicked the shit out of our own Nam war vets for My Lai and gave them a silent return and have been regretting our error since.

On one hand I look at kids in Iraq & say "assholes.. if they die fighting for a rotten cause they volunteered for it's their own fault", but these kids are young, want to believe their prez knows better, some are dumb, and heaps of misspent youth is something to lament no matter what angle you look at it.

Well...exactly. This is the hard part of viewing films such as Burmese Harp now...we're so thoroughly inundated with subsequent assholeness that we can't see the sincerity of the sentiment--and here I refer to the ongoing shitheadedness of the Japanese government to recognize their crimes against humanity backed up by the barrage of cinema that portrays the Japanese foot soldier as a heartless murderer. But the Japanese loss of life (and the Triangle Mountain episode was such a perfectly epitomised example) is tragic regardless of the atrocities. Just look at the director of Humanity and Paper Balloons--how many poets, writers, directors, fathers, sons, et al were lost needlessly.... or as stated in Harp repeatedly "died meaninglessly"?

Sadly, in hindsight, we deny certain nations the right to mourn their dead due to war crimes. And here I certainly don't intend to make light of the atrocities that were committed by the Axis, but suffering in time of war is universal.

I see Joan Mellen as an English professor -- with a lot of ideological baggage -- who just happens to have found a market writing about movies. Every now and then she writes things of interest -- but by and large I find her approach to film unuseful. I see her as the near polar opposite of someone like Bordwell.

Damn. This movie was great.

It's my first Ichikawa film. Now, I'm onto The Burmese Harp.

i loved those two movies. Fires On The Plain is a true masterpiece.

more Itchikawa please.

At the moment I'm reading the novel from which 'Fires On The Plain' was adapted. It's mesmerising. The translation is by Ivan Morris (who was responsible for the Penguin edition of Sei Shonagon's 'The Pillow Book'). Even if you've seen the film it's still worth reading.

The author, Shohei Ooka, also wrote 'The Lady of Musashino'. Has anyone read this or any of his other translated works?

Incidentally, J.G. Ballard rates 'Fires On The Plain', 'Burmese Harp' and Klimov's 'Come And See' as the three greatest war films ever made, which is interesting given that he was interned by the Japanese during WW2.