Monday, June 13, 2011

The Burmese Harp

I think this may be the most powerful and subtle antiwar film I have seen. It presents the Japanese defeat in WWII from the Japanese soldier's point of view. That culture's sensitivity to humiliation and loss of face plays into the demise of one unit which vows to fight to the death rather than accept capture. The heavily shadowed black and white photography in the beginning when the outcome for Mizushima, the private and harp player, is still circumscribed by combat, gives way toward the end to lighter, clearer shots of a more serene nature when he has made his choice.

His odyssey toward spirituality and away from waging war is a tortured look at what war does, not only to people's lives, but to their ideals. Confronted by the enormity of hundreds of unburied Japanese bodies, he endeavors to pay respect to them. He attempts to bury some by hand, he burns others and constructs an altar. In the end, when repatriation comes for the Japanese prisoners, he stays behind in Burma to honor and protect these dead brothers with his presence as a Buddhist monk in training. Perhaps that is all one man can do in the face of such meaningless destruction of human life. Can we ever stop it? The question here is 'Can this ever be worth what it costs?' The answer is never easy. And it is a very personal one. That this man, this eager-to-please private, should devote the rest of his life to peace is a powerful statement.

This film is widely considered a masterpiece from director Kon Ichikawa. He does not demonize the enemy. In fact, there is a touching sequence in which both sides in a standoff, both unaware that the war ended three days earlier, sing to each other across the battlefield. We see the vulnerable humanity of both sides, their longing to go home. Music is used very beautifully here. The Captain, played by Rentaro Mikuri, who is interviewed on this Criterion disc in 2005, is a choral director in his pre-war life, and he teaches his unit choral singing as a way to unite them. The songs are haunting in their plaintive longing and a perfect metaphor for what unites us as a species, which, I think, is our intrinsic desire for harmony and peace.

Also included on this disc is an interview with director Ichikawa taped, I think, in 2002. He, too, (like Ozu about whom I wrote earlier) was a director who relied heavily on his storyboarding. The screenplay, based on a Japanese children's novel by Michio Takeyama, was written by Ichikawa's wife, Natto Wada. From the comments in the interviews, it seems that Wada, with Takeyama's permission, took considerable license with the story and the characters, adding much, I believe, that elevated this film to universal understanding, rather than removing anything essential.

This film was remade in 1985, and I have not seen the remake, but my question about remakes of classics is always, 'Why?'  There is a relevance to the 1956 version that will never be lost. We continue to wage war, men continue to fight for causes not their own, war costs so very, very much, in every way conceivable. A film which says so clearly and beautifully why war is not worth it deserves to stand on its own.

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