yall see “love” and immediately go to “romantic love” if you translate “love is the whole point” to “romantic love is the whole point” you need to rethink everything because love is found in everything. in community, in friendships, in family, in food, in nature so actually love is the whole point and u can die mad about it. hope this helps <3
someone invents a recipe > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > (this continues indefinitely)
The funny thing is as a parent you always think, “mine isn’t as good as Nana made it.” But your kid adores it and one day will say “it isn’t as good as my mama made it but the kids like it.”
and on it goes
and so love is passed down the chain of generations, on and on, from mouth to mouth to heart to heart
Referring to oneself as Blackis done out ofself-love and a desire to remember the extinguished stars and rolling seas of our ancestral selves / to uncover and reimagine the roots and routes of our own becomings.
Referring to oneself as Whiteis done out of self-preservation and a desperation to belong to an artificial reality, a biomythology of half-truths and empire-dreams chained to a pedestal left behind to erode in the darkwaters of the rising oceans.
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.
the human body is an engineering marvel. I sneeze in bright light. if I dont get enough sunlight on my skin I get tired and sad and have to drink a lot of milk to fix it. standing too much hurts, but sitting too much also hurts. if I get a virus, my body will increase its temperature in an attempt to cook it, which also cooks my brain cells. toenails exist. I have to turn the radio down to see better when I drive. there are 17 genes dictating what my hair texture is, but it completely changes when the air is too humid. yawning is contagious. there are more species of bacteria living in my body than there are species of birds in the entire world. every few months I grievously injure my neck by “sleeping on it weird.” it took seven million years of human evolution to form me, and now I’m afraid of phone calls.
i think there’s something so beautiful about postcards and how they say that yes i was in this beautiful place but i still couldn’t stop thinking about you
