1959’s ‘Fires on the Plain’ portrays soldiers in hellish conditions
Fires on the Plain can be a subtle wonder. The Kon Ichikawa-directed film doesn’t feel like a product of 1959. The dark themes explored within these 104 minutes feel too avant-garde, too controversial for more than 50 years ago. Yet, the black-and-white film, beautifully shot and preserved by the Criterion Collection, is that rare war drama, feeling ahead of its time and yet grounded in historical reality. Remember this one as an effective film that highlights an unbelievably violent time in world history.
Eiji Funakoshi plays Tamura, a Japanese soldier in World War II who finds himself disconnected from everyone, friend and foe alike. He journeys through the Philippines, seemingly lost and always in search of humanity. What he finds along the way is an increasingly uncomfortable set of soldiers who push the boundaries of acceptable wartime adaptations. He’s running across these “fires on the plain,” hoping to survive long enough for the struggle to finish.
Ichikawa never heightens the war action or plays to any sense of patriotism, heroism or righteousness. Fires on the Plain is far too dark to wrap itself around any commonly held beliefs surrounding armed conflict. John Wayne’s The Green Berets this is not.
The director, using a screenplay by Natto Wada, personalizes the conflict by focusing on Tamura’s tribulations, allowing us to see the war through his eyes and the eyes of the men he encounters on the way. There’s never an idea of what goes on around the country or beyond the horizon. The war is never discussed in terms of global winners and losers, enemies and friends, heroes and villains. It’s all about Tamura; it’s all about one man’s quest. This makes the film deeply personal and uniquely uncomfortable. We cannot turn away. We cannot reduce any character to a single statistic.
Fires on the Plain will sit unpleasantly with many viewers. If taken at face value, how far the characters descend is downright scary. Yet, within these declines are many lessons to be learned. The movie is not meant to be war in the physical sense. This is war on the internal front, on the faces of the men who fight, and that can be a sad, sad affair.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
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Fires on the Plain
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1959
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Directed by Kon Ichikawa
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Written by Natto Wada; based on a story by Shohei Ooka
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Starring Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa and Mickey Curtis
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Running time: 104 minutes
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Not Rated
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Rating:
