Fires On The Plain

I have been meaning to see some of highly regarded director Kon Ichikawa films after reading about him in various books in the last couple of years. He is considered one of the great postwar humanists along with other directors like Kurosawa, Kobayashi, and Shinoda. I also plan to use one of his films in my Japanese Cinema course in English next year. Fires On The Plain (1959) is the main candidate, however, I still need to see some of his other films. But this one is an interesting anti-war film that focuses on the dehumanizing aspect of war outside of battles. This film looks at soldiers stranded in the Philippines near the end of WWII who try to struggle to survive. It touches on the taboo subject of cannibalism, which was said to have occurred in Papua New Guinea. It is more notable for what is left out of the Philippines campaign: the slaughter of civilians (100,000 alone in Manila) while fleeing, the Bataan Death March (where 10,000 POWs died), forced-labor camps, and sexual slavery. That being said Ichikawa has created a realistic portrait of the existential hell that many soldiers endured at the end of the war, which is an effective anti-war sentiment. Technically the film is well made with interestingly framed shots from various camera angles and a powerful performance by Eiji Funakoshi. Ichikawa and his script writing wife , Natto Wada, have infused the film with many instances of gallows humor as well. It is said that the they removed the Christian subtext of the original novel according to the accompanying essay by Chuck Stephens, which I have yet to read. However, it would be interesting to see the contrast between the two stories.