A Classic Japanese Movie of World War II, ‘The Burmese Harp’ Sustains Its Notes of Camaraderie and Compassion

The 1956 Japanese film “The Burmese Harp” tells the story of a Japanese infantry unit in Burma (now Myanmar) at the tail end of World War II, and in its meticulous storytelling it achieves a form of grace in harmony with its balancing of themes of brotherhood, individuality, sacrifice, and understanding. Released 10 years after Japan’s defeat and the war’s end, the motion picture was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1957 Academy Awards. It lost to Fellini’s “La Strada,” which is almost an honor in itself, and over the years esteem for the film has grown. A new 4K digitally restored version arrives Friday at the Film Forum.The narrative begins in July 1945 as a Japanese battalion flees advancing Allied forces across Burmese jungle and crag. Captain Inouye maintains morale and unity through troop singing, and the soldiers are lucky to have in their ranks a private named Mizushima who can play a traditional Burmese harp as accompaniment. Mizushima can also speak the local language fairly well, leading his fellow grunts to tease him with the idea that he should remain in the country after war’s end. Upon arriving at a hamlet, the troops are provided with food and entertainment by the villagers but soon realize it’s a pretext for an ambush by British forces. In a fantastic sequence, Inouye orders his men to sing and dance while they retrieve their ammunition from a cart outside. When the British begin to sing in turn, a strange standoff occurs. The same childlike melody sung by the Japanese transposes itself to an English song, with the moon shining placidly as the tension pauses curiously, despite the British surrounding the hut they’re in.Shōji Yasui as Mizushima in ’The Burmese Harp.’ Via Janus FilmsTwo elements distinguish this sequence, and the movie overall, from other war films: the prominent use of music and its striking photography. It almost goes without saying that a film whose title references a musical instrument would integrate diegetic chords and songs along with a stirring score (by composer Akira Ifukube, who also created Godzilla’s signature roar). What is perhaps unexpected is the painterly black-and-white cinematography, with shots bristling with light and shadow, all the better to convey the veil of fear and chaos of jungle vegetation. At other times, the striations of light and shade serve to reinforce the regimented order of life in the service. Each frame of the film – from intimate closeups to long shots – is a well-composed, precisely lit image that could stand on its own as an art photograph. Director Kon Ichikawa and cinematographer Minoru Yokoyama arrange the actors and scenic elements to relay not just information and emotion but scale, moving and angling the camera for maximum effect. Case in point: After Japan has surrendered and Mizushima’s mission to convince a different battalion to lay down arms fails, the harp player awakens after a battle to find himself alive within a cave of dead bodies.Once Mizushima recovers from his wounds with the help of a Bhuddist monk, the movie shifts from a wartime focus to one of post-war guilt and moral struggle. Everywhere the lone soldier goes — now looking like a bhikkhu himself, with his shaved head and robe — he encounters fallen Japanese fighters, sometimes in heaps. These nightmarish sights become a kind of spiritual journey for the character, as he either shuns the bodies or attempts to bury them while passersby mistake him for a holy man. Mr. Ichikawa expertly cuts between Mizushima’s trek across wastelands and his company, who are imprisoned at a British military camp. It’s near this camp that Mizushima witnesses British nurses singing above a grave for unknown Japanese warriors, provoking a profound crisis in the sensitive young man. Mizushima is torn by what he’s seen — the disregard for the bodies of his fellow countrymen and this act of kindness — and how it connects with his troop mates, who wish him to return with them to Japan.After realizing he’s still alive, Captain Inouye and his men cannot understand why Mizushima does not come to the prisoner camp as promised. It’s this quandary that takes up most of the movie’s second hour. If the film loses some of its power as it progresses, with a subplot involving parrots betraying the story’s children’s-book origins, it nevertheless continues to effectively explore issues of nationalism versus the greater good, of solidarity and individuality, and even between different forms of Buddhism. While elegiac, the film isn’t so much interested in apologizing to the world for Japan’s aggression as it is in reckoning with the country’s reputation for savagery and conformity from within.Mizushima’s unit wants to get back to its homeland to begin reconstruction, to return to some sort of normalcy, but the now-ordained monk wants to stay in Burma in a process of expiation and compassion. Yet the two sides come to appreciate each other, with music binding them forever. Many have called “The Burmese Harp” an anti-war film, and while it’s certainly that, its exquisite message could also be called pro-humanity.

A Classic Japanese Movie of World War II, ‘The Burmese Harp’ Sustains Its Notes of Camaraderie and Compassion

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