Fires On The Plain

I watched Kon Ichikawa's film, Fires on the Plain and was completely torn asunder. With having only The Burmese Harp under my belt as far as Ichikawa films go I was more than shocked by the drastic change in tone. Fires is a far more bleak and hopeless look at war than the prior. It derives this from refusing to imbed a message about war itself but allow war to be it's star. The characters, even the main character-Private Tamura played with exhausted paitience by Eiji Funakoshi are helpless victims lost in the ebb and flow of tragedy. This is a film that will stick inside your mind for days, even weeks forcing you contemplate what you has seen and what it may mean to you. It's a relentless anti-war film by simply revealing the horror in quiet, yet brutal strokes. This is a film you have to see. Thank god for Criterion!