bluetomorrows:

Going Through My Movies Part 12: The Human Condition (1959-61)

How do you even talk about this movie?

The title is completely accurate. This is a film about the human condition. What it means to be human. The cost of being human.

Everything.

The Human Condition is technically 3 films: No Greater Love, Road to Eternity, and A Soldier’s Prayer, all of which themselves are split into 2 parts.

I choose to view it as one film. It’s all based on the same book, the Criterion box set calls it “A film by Masaki Kobayashi”, all the parts acknowledge their placement in the whole (i.e. Road to Eternity begins with a screen that says “Part 4”), and also the films don’t work on their own. They would still be good, but they’re all clearly operating as parts of one larger story.

Anyways, what is that larger story?

The Human Condition is the story of a sane man in an insane world. Kaji is a socialist, and a humanist. He believes deep to his core that every man, woman, and child deserves respect, and that the best thing for humanity, for everyone, is for us to work together.

And this man is placed in fascist Japan.

You believe that every man is born equal and that we should all just love each other and do what’s best for humanity as a whole? Great, go fight for the axis powers.

Everywhere Kaji is put, running a Japanese prison, basic training, the front lines, a Soviet POW camp, or just wandering the Manchurian countryside, he tries to make things better.

But over and over again he is stopped. He isn’t allowed to make things better, anytime he pushes through and manages to make some change, things are only made worse for himself. He’s in a constant dilemma and we’re with him all the way.

Kaji is a modern Sisyphus. He is forever doomed to push his boulder of humanism up a hill in an uncaring cruel world. And he’s doomed to do this for eternity, or 9 hours of runtime, whichever comes first.

I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that those 9 hours go by fast. They don’t. This is actually an extremely slow movie. You never mind because it’s so great, but it is slow. By the end, you feel like you’ve taken in the totality of human experience.

The Human Condition is also about a search for meaning. Japan is fighting a war they cannot possibly win, but almost every character in the movie deludes themselves into thinking that the Japanese empire will topple the invading forces. What’s the point of even going on? Why shouldn’t Kaji just lay down his arms and desert his country?

It’s a good thing to search for when Kaji is fighting for what’s right. What’s the point of it all? Can we really do good? And I don’t mean make things better for a while, can we make real lasting change for the betterment of our society?

The Human Condition doesn’t really give us solid answers for any of the questions we’re going to ask. But it isn’t really shouting into the void either. It gives you ideas and concepts and just leaves the final decision up to you. Characters in the film make their decision, it’s just your choice if you agree or not.

The film is filled to the brim with these grand wide shots and I think they serve a couple purposes. One they’re just really beautiful shots. Two they’re good at portraying some of the actions that are taken in the settings of the film. And three, they emphasize how small we are.

I think if I were to condense the themes of the film into one sentence, it would be that humans are small stupid creatures.

We are at war with each other and ourselves, and we refuse to help ourselves. But we still matter. We may refuse help, but we still need to try to love each other. We can’t give up. That is what really makes us human.

And maybe we will fail. Maybe it will end in tragedy. Maybe we will be separated from those we love. Maybe we will lose what made us love life. But we need to try. If not, then what’s the point of our lives? Why do we put any importance on these small stupid creatures?

The Human Condition is not only a monumental achievement in cinema but in humanity. I think if everyone in the world watched this film the world would be a better place.

I think this is the greatest film ever made. I implore you to watch it

Next up in my collection is Kiki’s Delivery Service, which I am very excited about.

See ya when I see ya

Scent of Gerranium (2016)

Dir. Naghmeh Farzaneh

Tradition, squandered by youth.

If…., is a film by Lindsay Anderson, a director so meticulous, he’s able to capture the non-sequential spontaneous acts of adolescent boys and frame it in such a way that forces the audience to admire each sequence in the movie.

This film follows the path of students entering their senior year at a boarding school in England during its post WWII era. They are constantly drilled to uphold tradition as well as pride for their country. As adolescents they naturally rebel against the system in typical fashion; drinking, smoking, sneaking off campus…Their expectations for life and their school eventually go completely awry as their own boredom takes over and they plan to lash out violently towards their fellow classmates as well as teachers.

Lindsay Anderson’s vision for the film is a cinematographic masterpiece, in which he portrays an err of caution towards Britain and their traditionalism as they needlessly force old values onto their youths. And grant privilege to those who are undeserving and solely given privileges just because of their birth rights.

Anarchy, is the film’s greatest prescursor as the main characters often break the rules of the strict boarding school by intentionally going against all of its teachings. Their dormitory is even transformed with pictures of war and violence, as its contents decorate their walls; giving clue to the audience that these boys are “lost” and are seeking a greater focal point for their adolescent mind sets. They are seeking for something more, something to fight for and believe in, but cannot find due to the rigid nature of the traditions they must live by.

Like all films that go against archaic traditions and enforce progressive values, the film itself, in its storytelling is different. From the same school of thought as Godard, the film bounces from black and white to color; I tried to think really hard what the director’s intentions were behind this ploy, but couldn’t quite come up with a reason other then the fact that whenever the black and white sequences were occurring, the most simple and mundane tasks were being displayed on screen.

If…., is a great example of a film with not much going on for the majority of its duration, but builds upon performance and its content; the director does a great job with shot selection for he must have had a good working relationship with the cinematographer as it shows in each scene. The film stands out as social commentary and art, the majority of the film is memorable visually in my mind like a photo memorabilia. Lastly, as a side note; it goes without saying, this must have been a film J.K. Rowling scrutinized over for a lot of the details in the film, down to even how the characters are dressed remind me heavily of Harry Potter…

4/4

-DK