WILLIAM FLANIGAN Viewed on DVD and Streaming. Restoration = ten (10) stars; cinematography = nine (9) stars; score = eight (8) stars. Director Masaki Kobayashi's two-part(complete with scored intermission), moderately-sized, propaganda epoch using coal mining in China as a backdrop. Scenes of high drama are often book ended by heavy-handed scenes that stretch credulity to the point of unintentional humor and self caricature. Four prime flavors of protagonists bounce off one another in the Director's tale: a newly-hired, mine management-team member who is a compassionate liberal; conservative mine managers/labor-enforcers; military mine guards/minders; and ethnic/semi-ethnic "Chinese." Kobayashi seems to be struggling to maximize the inclusion of events depicted in the original source material (a super-sized contemporary novel) that results in loss of dynamics and consistency especially in the second half of the movie (the latter is also too long). The Director provides a number of truly startling and indelible scenes including: half-dead/dead Chinese slave labors being disgorged/pulled from sardine-can military box cars; and the execution (by samurai-style beheading) of slaves who may (or may not) have tried to escape. Exterior scenes shot at an immense open-pit coal mine in China are spectacular (the coal mine is the real star of this film!). Kobayashi also displays many hard-to-swallow oddities starting with his film's central plot point: a conservative mining company hires a left-wing, college student (who thereby avoids military call up) to booster the management team of a brutal and labor-intensive mining operation in far off China. There are many more. Among my favorites: the absence of any freshly mined coal (just pieces of jagged light-colored "ore"); a 3,300-volt electrical fence (to prevent Chinese slaves from escaping) complete with an impressive high-power infrastructure, but no visible means to power it all; labored Chinese dialog phonetically delivered by Japanese actors (ethnic Chinese physical and voice actors seem to be among the missing); and Chinese "comfort women" depicted as seasoned pros who clearly seem to enjoy practicing their profession ("happy hookers") and are never fully booked (about 50 sex workers are supposed to be servicing 10,000 non-slave and 500 slave labors!). Acting is OK but trends toward the histrionic and hammy in the second half of the film. Cinematography (wide screen, black and white) and scene lighting are excellent. Score is very good, but tends to have too many redundant phrases in its orchestration. Subtitles can be a bit long given their rapid flash-by rates. Most signs, armband, etc. are translated. Audio distortion mars the orchestral recording for the opening credits. Restoration is as good as it gets--the film looks like it was just released! Just go with the flow in this partial rewrite of history. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Cosmoeticadotcom The Human Condition has too many technical flaws, goes on too long, and, especially, its first 60% gets annoyingly moralistic and preachy at times (although Kaji does sink into a bit of justifiable depravity by film's end), to be considered an inarguably great film, but so much of the rest of it is assuredly great that it has to be in the argument for greatness, therefore I can term it a near-great film, even if, for many, it will seem an irredeemably depressing film; not unlike Theo Angelopoulos's The Weeping Meadow. This observation is true, but it is not a reason to avoid the film, nor art, because a work of art that depresses is not to say that it is not successful for that, if its depression spurs one on to cogitation over why this is. Also, criticism of the love that Kaji holds for his wife are all based on the assumption that the lead character is supposed to be an idealization of the average man rather than an example of the rare man, the potentially great man, who is denied his due. Therefore, the commonplace qualities of love and fidelity that a superior man holds become, in this misinterpretation, an idealized and unrealistically (capital r) Romantic flaw. But that is the flaw of the critics, not the artist.The film's equivocal excellence is probably no better exemplified than in its portrait of the Japanese Army. On the one hand the film seems to go a bit too light in its portrayal of the Japanese mistreatment of its Chinese victims (for with every passing year it seems that the Japanese Imperial Army made the Nazis seem like rank amateurs in human depravity), yet, on the other hand, the film does a great service in its humanizing of the average Japanese soldier from inhuman automatonic supermen to flawed misfits who often criticize and mock their superiors and the war's rightness. And while it abounds in caricatures and near-caricatures, the film also does an outstanding job of getting to specific moments of intensity (however prosaically- not poetically- rendered) between characters, in what would otherwise seem a mundane interaction. This allows for the speedy introduction of characters and building of empathy with them.The DVD, by The Criterion Collection, is one of the best releases they have had in the last couple of years. I've chided the company for skimping on audio commentaries in recent years, but this film's length, and the fact that it is spread over three disks, pretty much obviates any necessity for a commentary, and even an enthusiastic talking head like Japanese film expert Donald Richie or film critic Roger Ebert (were he healthy) would inevitably spend most of the nine plus hours on dead air. As usual, I wish all black and white films had easier to read subtitles than mere white font, but there are only a few instances of difficult to read wordings. Given that this film had an international release at a time when foreign films were routinely dubbed, it would have been great to have had an English language audio dubbed option, for likely one existed. There is an oddity in that there are Japanese subtitles on the right side of the screen for the Japanese audience, at moments characters speak Chinese. The fourth disk has all the supplements, and while it is missing an extended making of featurette, there are some good moments in interviews conducted with the film's director and star, and a short video bon mot of the film from Japanese filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda. There are some trailers and an insert essay, as well. But, this is there are DVD where the extras are really just that. Even with nothing, this film is worth seeing. It is also a very good restoration, in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, of the film compared to earlier VHS and DVD releases, many of which split the film into its three parts: No Greater Love (1959), Road To Eternity (1960), and A Soldier's Prayer (1961).The film's cinematography, by Yoshio Miyajima, is always solid, with a few moments of adventure- such as a shot as a tank roars overhead, but it is never spectacular. The scenes shot in a studio often clash with location shots, texturally. As for the use of black and white, no one is liable to confuse this film with the masterworks of an Orson Welles nor Michelangelo Antonioni. The film's score is one of its weakest elements, too often telegraphing 'important' moments. Nakasdai's acting dominates the film, for he is in virtually ever scene, and his slow transmogrification from bleeding heart liberal who sells out to stoic killing machine (he's an excellent soldier despite his avowed humanism) who years for his wife is subtle, believable, and most importantly, lets the viewer empathize with him. The Human Condition is one of those works of art that is not great, but has so much going on, at any moment, that it is not difficult to forgive its flaws- even those that glare, for another excellent or better moment will soon recapture your admiration. And, it's only in true epics that such largess is to be found. Excelsior!

Polaris_DiB Kobayashi makes very clear his distaste for authoritarian power of any kind (I believe he has an almost exact quote to that fact), and nowhere does he see more problems than with his home country of Japan. However, what astounds me about his movies is that he is very careful to present the issues in so much more than simplistic terms, and though there are "good" guys and "bad" guys, he is a strict realist and makes sure their motivations and viewpoints are fully explained. His movies always surprise and compel me, and now that I'm one third the way through his 9 hour long trilogy, I am remembering why.Say what you want about Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, the samurai "hero" is no action star and his fights ultimately come from being cornered where diplomacy and critical thinking no longer works. Now, Kobayashi is in the WWII era and there are no samurai defenders of justice to save the day, only a complicated mess of Imperialism, nationalism, and patriotism that one lowly humanist finds himself in constant confrontation with. Getting a job at some ore mines, Kaji hopes to find a productive job that will keep him out of the front lines of the war while doing the best to preserve human life in any way he can. At first arrival (in a noteworthily dusty and windy fashion), he confuses his new bosses and their coworkers by claiming he can increase production by--get this--treating workers well and giving them an incentive to work. These terribly radical ideas that clash so harshly against the typical production cycle of "beat the worker, get work done" is at first met with some success, much to the surprise and elation of the workers, but soon afterward the military appears with a cargo of 500 Chinese POWs to increase labor in the mines, and Kaji finds himself a slave owner of hundreds of desperate, starved, unwilling "special workers." Now no one has any patience with his pleas as he attempts to find a way of treating the new workers fairly, stemming escape attempts, and working the complicated and corrupt politics of so many military, industry, and government men.You know where this is going, but despite the 3hr40min playlength, it goes by rather rapidly. Again, there are no samurai sword dances to bring justice and hope to the "end" of the first part, but nevertheless most viewers should find themselves riveted to the screen as fully fleshed out, realistic characters struggle for power and attention and try to save lives--whether it be other people's lives or their own. This movie was shot in the late 1950s, not too far removed from the actual war, and Kobayashi fearlessly and directly confronts everything he observed wrong with the system during wartime Japan. Historical cultural stresses are recognized too, as the Chinese laborers and Japanese masters are constantly confronted with dehumanization and racism, and even a lone Korean appears as a guy "who is hated by both sides" and, in his own way, becomes a massive wrench thrown into an already crumbling machine. The dialog is also very precise and meaningful, important in a nearly four hour long movie, and there's a surprisingly lot of it considering the landscape its shot in. Which brings me to my final point: this is all set against the backdrop of a mining country-side, and Kobayashi uses the natural Japanese landscape to backdrop an epic humanitarian struggle against a sort of severe and rigid lifelessness. The landscape shots themselves can keep you interested through much of the movie, and Kobayashi's use of widescreen composition would make Sergio Leone's jaw drop (if it didn't actually, it would).Kobayashi's storytelling, also, is rather a little more accessible to Western cultures, too. It's more Kurosawa than Mizoguchi or Ozu. Along with many references to Western influences, the actor who plays Kaji looks more like a Westerner than most of the other characters around him (during the dust storm scene he almost looks like Clark Gable...), and he even gets judged poorly for "so many Western books". I'm not entirely sure that Kobayashi looked to the West and found a much better solution to authoritarianism, but he certainly is not attached to Japanese styles of film-making despite his intimacy and familiarity with the culture (which, by the way, extends beyond even the typical countryman's understanding of his own nation). In this movie many direct references are made to the fact that Kaji does not necessarily fit in, and that his mentality is literally Other than the predominate Japanese culture. What makes it great, though, is that Kaji is no perfect being and the other characters are never simple caricatures. Kaji approaches issues with straight-forward critical thinking, and despite how strong his convictions, surprisingly never falls into idealism. It's rare to see a movie like that from any culture, much less one that's able to sustain it for such a long period of time.We'll see how Kaji survives being on the front lines. Methinks the dialog will continue but the story is going to get a lot more messy.--PolarisDiB

FADrury An interesting film that portrays the struggles of an idealistic young Japanese man who is challenged to employ his idealism in the service of the Japanese war effort in WW II. A key aspect of this struggle is the protagonist's struggle within himself. Kaji, the young man, seeks to humanize the brutal conditions at a mining operation in Manchuria. Further complicating matters is the profound sense of national prejudice that shapes the relationships between the various characters. To the workers & Chinese prisoners, regardless of his professed ideals, Kaji is Japanese and therefore an oppressor. Although Kaji tries to win their trust, his own frustration enables him to strike a young Chinese helper, reinforcing the image of the brutal Japanese. This weakness is a key underlying theme. Even late in the film, when he takes a very brave stand against some executions, his effort is a bit late and his stand is successful only when the Chinese prisoners take up the protest. He struggles because her fears he cannot live up to the ideals he expresses.Kaji is also confronted with the another irony. Although he opposes the war, he has chosen a route of avoidance rather than resistance. This is emphasized early in the film during an evening with a friend who is about to be inducted. His friend comments that, although they opposed the war, neither of them was brave enough to face the penalty for resistance of life imprisonment. Shortly thereafter, he takes the mine job to get a military exemption. Yet, if he is successful, the production improvements in the mine only fuel the Japanese war machine.A valuable film because it explores areas of the pacific war that are not well know in the west. Also an interesting observation in the danger of half-measures when taking a moral stance. Kaji is ultimately confronted with the fact that you cannot avoid the war, only oppose it or aid it. I look forward to viewing the next film.