FIRES ON THE PLAIN Movie Review

Nobi

1959 Kon Ichikawa

Kon Ichikawa translates the experience of a Japanese soldier in the last year of World War II into a harrowing horror film. Nothing quite like it exists in American or European cinema, though other stories of defeat deal with the same emotions. This defeat is so devastating, so total and, finally, so intimate that it is difficult to describe.

Near the beginning, the main character, Tamura (Eiji Funakoshi) states in deadpan voiceover, “I was told to die, and I intend to. Why run, then?” Why indeed? It's 1945, the Philippines. American shelling has reduced Tamura's brigade to platoon strength. Racked with tuberculosis, the infantryman is ordered by his commander to go to the hospital, which has already returned him to his unit once. But conditions are so extreme at the hospital that the doctors won't admit anyone who doesn't bring his own rations. Too weak to fight, he hangs around outside the hospital and vows that he will pull the pin on his last grenade when all hope is lost. But nothing works out properly and Tamura sets off on an episodic journey/retreat from Leyte to Cebu.

Ichikawa paces the action deliberately, giving the film a dreamlike atmosphere. Tamura wanders from one horror to another, often encountering huge numbers of grotesquely distorted and dismembered bodies. It's a landscape where the dead far outnumber the living, and those who are left have reached the end physically and emotionally. Toward the end, Tamura falls in with two other soldiers, Yasuda (Osamu Takizawa), who's still trying to make the best of the situation by selling tobacco, and Nagamatsu (Mickey Curtis), his helper. It's tempting to see the conflicts that develop among them as an allegory for the Japanese military failure, but that's far too simple. The film works on several levels, both realistic and symbolic, but Ichikawa's overriding point is the absolute horror of war, finally taking his characters' descent down to a level that can only be defined as subhuman. At several significant moments, he seems to acknowledge Japanese guilt for the barbarous acts and atrocities committed against Philippine civilians, but the film makes no clear-cut political statements. The title has a double meaning, referring to American shelling and to a soldier's fond memory of farmers' harvest back home.

Working with cinematographers Setsuo Kobayashi and Setsuo Shibata, Ichikawa creates a series of striking widescreen black-and-white images, often filling the center of the frame with extreme closeups, or surrounding small solitary figures with a vast nightmarish wilderness. (Other critics complain that various tape editions of the film are poorly cropped, pan-and-scan translations. This review is based on the Home Vision Cinema cassette, which is letterboxed to the original DaieiScope proportions and clearly subtitled.) In Japan, Ichikawa is also known for his comedies, and despite its subject, this film has moments of grim humor, too. One long sequence involving boots and mud is a brilliant set piece told completely without dialogue.

It is only one moment, though, and does nothing to dilute Ichikawa's indictment of war. His vision is so clear and powerful that its most potent images will linger in memory after the heroics of most combat films have been long forgotten.

Cast: Eiji Funakoshi (Tamura), Osamu Takizawa (Yasuda), Mickey Curtis (Nagamatsu), Asao Sano (Soldier), Kyu Sazanka (Army surgeon), Yoshihiro Hamaguchi (Officer), Hikaru Hoshi (Soldier), Yasushi Sugita (Soldier), Masaya Tsukida (Soldier), Mantaro Ushio (Sergeant); Written by: Natto Wada; Cinematography by: Setsuo Kobayashi, Setsuo Shibata; Music by: Yashushi Akutagawa. Producer: Masaichi Nagata. Japanese. Running Time: 105 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta.