JAPANESE MOVIE CRITIQUE

Japanese Movie Review: 'Fires on the Plain' and 'Black Rain'



Japanese Movie Review: 'Fires on the Plain' and 'Black Rain'

What images and symbols do Japanese filmmakers use to characterize the scale of total destruction in Fires on the Plain and Black Rain?

Fires on the Plain

Fire is a symbol of hope for exemption from the carnage and despair surrounding the soldiers. The final irony of how deceptive too, that hope was. All of them are caught in a web of lies, deceit, cruel, that a man in his primitive state so easily back room nearly every sacred cow, brotherhood, respect and honor refuted. Man is both figurative and literal man-eater, preying on his comrades, friends. The film grimly realistic yet surreal and nightmarish barren landscapes of the corpses, dung-eating madmen, and men who crawl like animals over the trench; Ichikawa images are of barbaric splendor and fabulous aura, backed by dissonant, percussion soundtrack, with its echoes of Bartok. No film for those who do not want to face the extent of human ability to monstrous head, for others it is harrowing, deeply unpleasant.

Whether it actually happened or not, but cannibalism in Fires on the Plain is a symbol of complete lack of morality / dignity / compassion, are a result of the war; I have little or no interest in reading books, especially from what you say, Ichiawa should be made for some very necessary changes.

However, even in this grim film, there are some signs of humanity. Tamura, although tuberculosis and emancipated willingly shares his rations and a few of his precious salt, even if it is not enough. There are moments of friendship between the floor Tamura and stragglers, as well as between Tamura and another soldier named Nagamatsu, however, the gloomy prospects for our pleasant Tamura said. And ...