MUBI

Anyone who watches this film after having watched Kobayashi’s The Human Condition(released in the same year as Fires on the Plain) will notice a few important similarities. Firstly, Fires on the Plain tracks the story of a Japanese imperial army soldier who basically tries to survive without surrendering, which is similar to the last few parts of The Human Condition. Secondly, the hero of Fires on the Plain looks uncannily similar to Tatsuya Nakadai (who stars in The Human Condition) albeit a ridiculous caricature of the latter.
Our hero is not a model of virtues but rather a commoner who is trying to survive in the aftermath of war. He is even willing to surrender at a point until he sees a fellow soldier getting killed while trying to surrender. He does have a good heart; he doesn’t mind sharing his food with others and even seems to befriend other Japanese soldiers very easily due to his simple mindedness. Initially, he seems to enjoy killing people until he kills a woman villager, after which he throws away his rifle. Our protagonist doesn’t inspire us(like Nakadai) but rather makes us laugh with his unnatural gait and goofy expressions, but his personality seems to strangely gel with the madness that surrounds him. Ichikawa shoots the horrors of war keeping this rather naive character in the fore front who seems to represent the audience. He is as bewildered, as repulsed and as delirious as we are by the time the movie ends and dearly hopes to see people living normal lives.
I contrast this film with The Human Condition (which happens to be one of my all time favorite films) not only because of its similarities but also because of the difference in approach that the two directors take towards the subject. One focuses on the triumph of an idealistic individual against all odds whereas the other is the survival of an average good hearted human being in the midst of madness, yearning for normalcy.
This film shows us the horrors of war at a very personal level by showing human beings resorting to the gory act of cannibalism, which the director seems to point out as being as horrifying as people killing each other mercilessly on the battlefield, without even knowing their enemy.
The intense revulsion towards the madness of war that the audience experiences through the eyes of the protagonist as well as the intense yearning for peace and normalcy makes this the greatest anti-war film I have ever seen.

I had the amazing experience of watching Fires on the Plain in the beautiful Castro Theatre in San Francisco with only maybe… five to ten others in the audience. I wept with such a gut-wrenching feeling. Beautifully shot.. so much devastating, dynamic texture in sound and visuals. The dirty explosions are forceful, sense of isolation from the landscapes horrifying and alienating.

Fires on the Plain shows a brilliant display of cinematic rhythm created with beautifully composed landscapes, escalating horrors and even including awkward physical “humour” of silent films and even old Ub Iwerks Silly Symphony cartoons.

Tamura to me is one of the most amazing characters in movies. He is almost like the idiot savant of Sufi stories, Nasruddin, in his stubborn natural dawdling innocence even in the midst of the most volatile situations.

Unlike most war films Ichikawa’s takes us far beyond the outline or midst of written textbook history and into a deathscape of the completely forsaken underbelly of the battlefield. Much credit must go to Ichikawa’s wife, Natto Wada for her beautifully detailed humanistic screenplays. Watch this and then follow it with Ichikawa’s “The Burmese Harp.”