We have met the enemy: The Human Condition

M. Kobayashi's six-part epic wartime melodrama The Human Condition is as dark, unrelenting, powerful as anything you'll ever see - not for everyone for sure, and hardly a cheerful or uplifting moment in the whole nine hours, but we were totally captivated by the story and the unrelenting struggle for survival, with so many great scenes, and all centered on a strong lead character, Kaiji: the story follows him from his time as a manager in a Manchurian mine with war prisoners scripted into forced labor (Kaiji is a progressive socialist, and his ideas are squashed time and again), his entry into the Japanese Army near the end of WWII on the Manchurian front, and, in the last two parts, his struggle with a small band of survivors to make his way past enemy Chinese and Russian troops through Manchuria to reunite with long-suffering wife, Michiko. In earlier post I compared this epic with Doctor Zhivago, and there are similarities, but by the end I see it as much less romantic and far darker - perhaps a better comparison would be with Grapes of Wrath - the constant struggle for ideals, survival, against terrible odds and circumstances. Throughout, the worst opponents are not the "enemy" but the fellow-Japanese soldiers (and sometimes civilians) with their rigid adherence to discipline and their indifference to brutality and tyranny: the worst being the veteran soldiers who torment the new recruits, the Japanese leaders and translators who do the dirty work for the Russian troops, and the mine operators squeezing every bit of life out of their POW workers. The many unforgettable scenes include the arrival of the POWs at the mine, the torture of the Terado, forced to die during "latrine duty," Kaiji's confrontation with the veterans in their bunkhouse, and the many crowd scenes shot outdoors - miners working, prisoners in rebellion, digging the trenches, the march to the mines, the march under Russian guard. A great if difficult movie, or really series of movies, by a director little known in the U.S. and little known for any other major work, but this one's enough.

The Japanese Doctor Zhivago: The Human Condition

Parts 3 and 4 of M. Kobayashi's epic drama The Human Condition (1959) continue with the horrifying saga of Kaiji, an intelligent and humane young man with "modern" ideas about the fair treatment of workers: in parts 1 and 2 we saw him figuratively crushed by authority as he tries to reform conditions in a mine on the Manchurian frontier during WWII; parts 3 and 4 continue his story as he's drafted into the army in the waning days of the war and terribly brutalized during basic training (part 3) and then, in part 4, he becomes a PFC and tries to be kind to his recruits but he is harassed and essentially mauled be a troupe of veterans who despise his modern ways of training. It's a story of almost unrelenting suffering, and told in an operatic style, but for all that completely captivating and, as in parts 1 and 2, full of very memorable scenes, some claustrophobic scenes in the crowded barracks (the fight against Kaiji, the tormenting of a weak soldier and his eventual suicide), and even more so the outdoor scenes: digging trenches before battle, an escape toward the Russian border through a brush fire and a marshy bog. The romantic element of the story is much less significant in this section - except that we see Kaiji becoming increasingly hardened to life during his time in service and further removed or even estranged from his young wife - it is obvious that he will never be able to return to this marriage after the war (another element enters as he meets a young nurse who gets shipped off to the front - though they are polite and decorous to one another, there are definitely sparks). This epic is in some ways the Japanese Doctor Zhivago - a story of a man of high ideals torn apart over a long span of time by historical events, finding some solace in love but also great pain and anguish, especially as he is torn between conflicting loves and conflicting ideals.

Two absolutely unforgettable scenes in the great Human Condition

Yes it's clunky and old-fashioned in its way, and what do you expect of a Japanese studio piece from 1959 - the melodramatic score, the acting that at times is almost out of a silent movie - filled with buy-eyed stares of amazement - and yes the story itself at times seems like a grant historical melodrama of star-crossed lovers and fights against tyranny and injustice - but Kobayashi's The Human Condition (1959) is not only perhaps the longest film ever made (actually, it breaks nicely into 6 90-minute or so parts, and today would be presented as a series, not as a single movie) is also one of the greatest, in my opinion and based so far only on parts 1 and 2: a grand narrative equal in scope to Doctor Zhivago or Gone with the Wind but more than either of those two movies a real study of moral values and clashes of culture in time of war. The historical elements may be unfamiliar to Western viewers, but the movie, in its simple plot outline, is very easy to enter and soon becomes thoroughly engaging: a young man, Kaji, becomes exempt from WWII (it's 1943) because he works in a vital industry producing ore. He has theories of how to treat the laborers, notably, treat them well and they will be more productive. He's sent out to a remote Manchurian mine, where the brutal local mine managers test him in every way. Aside from the extraordinary visual interest of many of the scenes, such as the arrival at the mine in the midst of a dust storm or the long tracking shots of the mine community, sometimes seen from an ore hill and sometimes looking up at the lines of laborers climbing trails to the pit entrance, the first two parts of the movie have a few sequences that are simply unforgettable: the arrival of the prison laborers, left in boxcars at a railroad spur, and the execution scene, punishing so-called escapees. The story itself is very compelling as we watch KAJI struggle with his ideals and try to build a life for himself in a remote place and culture - no place to bring his young, perky, somewhat naive wife Michiko. Part 2 ends with the man suddenly and surprisingly drafted into the Japanese army - a reprisal for his too-liberal management of the mine workers, perhaps.