Die Harfe von Burma

Putting history and politics aside, I found this film confronted some very human emotions involving war. No matter if this were a Japanese company of soldiers, or a British company, most war movies don't touch on ideas like you'll find here. The film follows a company of Japanese soldiers, with little or no supplies, attempting to reach the border of Thailand. The men enjoy singing wherever they go, and are quite proud of their abilities. It makes them think of their loved ones back home and gives them a sense of unity and hope. One of the men, Mizushima, plays the harp with natural talent, as he had never studied music before joining the army. There is a great scene where the Japanese see the British troops hiding in the forest, so they start to sing, tricking the British into thinking they are oblivious to them. When the British then start singing back, and both sides are singing together, it is a scene of great joy and unity between all humans. Somehow it isn't even cheesy.though it seems it could be, the way I'm writing this review. The British notify the Japanese men that the war ended three days earlier, when Japan surrendered. They are placed in a P.O.W. camp until it is possible to send them all home. The commander of the Japanese men attempts to fill his men's hearts with hope and pride, telling them that together they will rebuild Japan. They are told that nearby, a company of Japanese troops is in an ongoing skirmish with the British, unreachable and unaware of the war's end. Mizushima, is given permission to go and try to explain that Japan has surrendered, promising his company that he'll catch up in Mudon. This turns out to be a not very easy job, as the commanding officer is into the whole `I'm not giving up until I die,' philosophy. Getting nowhere, Mizushima questions their logic to try and persuade them their lives are worth saving, as Japan needs to be rebuilt. The British only agreed to a 30 minute cease fire, and when that time is up, all the Japanese men are killed. Only Mizushima crawls out alive and is found by a Buddhist monk. While he is taken care of by the monk, his company is sad and anxious for his return. Once healed, his intention is to walk to Mudon and surprise all the men, so he sets out in Buddhist costume across Burma. On his way he encounters many heaps and piles of rotting dead Japanese soldiers, and he feels it important to give them a proper burial.

These scenes are when Mizushima fully realizes the extent of what war is all about. It's not about pride and hope, it's about putting your life on the line. He is accepted by the Buddhist church and decides to stay and live a simple life, honoring the dead through prayer and burial. His men try to persuade him using a talking parrot switcheroo, teaching a parrot to say `come home to Japan, Mizushima' and giving it to him. He, in reply, sends back his parrot, which he taught to say `no, I am staying here.' It is a pacifist sentiment throughout, a great film covering the human emotional perspective on war in a unique way.

Very poignant anti-war statement, supported with passionate music and photography. A Japanese POW at the end of the war is separated from his comrades when he tries to coax some hold-outs to surrender. After disastrous results, he disguises as a Buddhist monk and is considered dead, wandering the countryside and continually confronted with the truly dead. His friends suspect he has survived and are disconsolate unless reunited with him. But before he can rejoin them, his journey gradually and painfully transforms him. He has a new mission and a new identity, his spiritual garb no longer a mere disguise.

Powerful, if slow moving, and relentlessly allegorical anti war film. The problem I have with allegorical works, be they movies, plays or novels, is that the characters, being more symbols than living, breathing characters with living, breathing quirks and contradictions, tend toward the stiff and humorless. And with the partial exception of the lone woman in this film, a subtly wry old crone, that is the case here.

What redeems the film and gives it its force is director Kon Ichikawa's imagery and use of music. Aided by his cinematographer Minoru Yokoyama, Ichikawa has many shots that are arresting and that linger in the mind. The most visceral, of course, are the killing fields through which the soldier turned monk Mizushima must pass in order to attain inner peace but for me the most affecting is the shot, from behind, of Mizushima, twin parrots perched on each shoulder, playing "No Place Like Home" on the eponymous musical instrument, child acolyte by his side and Japanese prisoners, behind barbed wire, listening, one hopes attentively and not just sentimentally, to the plaintive song. Which brings me to Ichikawa's use of music, mentioned by several previous reviewers. It is brilliant in its ability to convey the themes of humanity and brotherhood that are at the heart of this eminently good hearted work. In fact, the score is so striking that at times it reminds me of a John Ford film. And where I come from that is high praise, indeed. B plus.

Based on a novel by Michio Takeyama, The Burmese Harp was the first film that brought director Kon Ichikawa to international attention. It is the story of Mizushima (Shoji Yasui) a Japanese soldier in Burma at the close of World War Two who is sent on a mission by his Captain to inform another unit of the Japanese surrender and to convince them to stop fighting. When the unit refuses to give up and are destroyed by the British Army, only Mizushima remains alive and must come to terms with his nation's defeat. Pretending to be a Buddhist monk, he undergoes a religious conversion when he comes face to face with the staggering amount of death and destruction he sees as he travels across the region in search of his unit. Determined to honor and bury the dead, Mizushima is conflicted about remaining in Burma to live a life of service or returning to Japan to help rebuild his own country.

The film takes its name from a Burmese harp acquired by Mizushima. He has become an expert harpist and plays while the soldiers sing beautiful chorales with a sound so lush it feels as if it is coming from the Mormon Tabernacle. While the depiction of the soldiers may be idealized, The Burmese Harp transcends its limitations to become a universal testament not only to the madness that prevailed in Burma, but to the unspeakable horror of all war. Ichikawa, in spite of the fact that film became a classic, loved the story so much that he filmed it again in 1985.

Towards the end of WWII, a group of Japanese soldiers struggle through the chaos of national disintegration, trying to reach the border through the Burmese jungle. Their Captain is musically trained and forms them into an ad hoc male choir in order to maintain morale. Foot soldier Mizushima plays the titular instrument and as such become a talismanic figure in the group. When he later disappears and suffers an existential crisis, his fate comes to obsess the group as a whole.

Ichikawa's iconic piece contains a strong anti-war theme that survives beyond its 1945 setting. Mizushima's troop are timeless, soldiers dreaming of homes, wives, town festivals; clinging to nostalgia to guide them home and fighting on for each other rather than any greater cause inspired by the imagined national community. Much more identifiable with the period are the troop holding out against the British even after national surrender, fanatics looking to die for an Emperor who has forsaken them rather than return to their families and rebuilding of the community. Among these men, there are no songs.

Mizushima's conversion from soldier-musician to selfless monk symbolises a state of reflection that follows all armed conflict. The film has been criticised for failing to confront the barbarism of the Imperial army, but this lack of identification with specific national failings is what gives the film a theme that transgresses to other cultures, conflicts and evils - the coming to terms with a life to be lived in the aftermath of horror. The flaws on the Yamato spirit may not be interrogated, but the atrocities of war are present, most visibly in Mizushima's encounter with the rotting flesh of fallen comrades being picked over by scavenger birds.

The framing is impeccable, and those looking for a quintessential Japanese aesthetic will be surprised by the extensive use of closeups. The music is spare and suitably evocative of military camaraderie and frightened young men coping far from home. Mizushima's journey is both symbolic and highly plausible, as is the reaction of his brothers-in-arms. Great cinema in its own right, and at the very top of the tree in anti-war movies.