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Ningen no jôken (1961) Plus avec IMDbPro »

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20 utilisateurs sur 21 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Possibly the greatest anti-war statement, 4 novembre 2007

Auteur : Trouter2000 de Canada

When people think of anti-war films titles such as Platoon, All Quiet on the Western Front and Schindler's List almost immediately come to mind; such films have defined the genre in American culture. However very few directors have provided the perspective from the axis point of view, and fewer still were able to do so in a way that humanizes all countries, not just the protagonist's. Masaki Kobayashi, who is most well known for his samurai pictures such as Seppuku and Samurai Rebellion is able to form such a film, without even a hint of pretentiousness.

The series of films spans nearly ten hours, following a pacifist named Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), as he struggles to keep his principles during war times. First as an overseer of a P.O.W. camp, then as a soldier. Due to the length of the film, the level of character development and acting quality, we end up feeling his frustration, pain and triumphs, as each occasion leaves room for both a triumph of the human spirit and subjugation of it. Kaji despises both warfare and violence of all kinds, yet tries to rationalize it for the good of those around him. We become so attached to him and his struggle, that we begin to feel similarly, and as a result we are left with one of the most moving chronicles of the loss that war becomes. I won't spoil anything, but any viewer will be floored by the end, it left me utterly breathless.

So overall I recommend it quite highly, its one of the few great anti-war statements that has aged VERY well in the modern day, and possibly Kobayashi's greatest work. Never slow, yet at the same time never glorifying the action, it is a film that I eagerly await to see re-released.

10/10.

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6 utilisateurs sur 6 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Eisenstein and Fellini, 7 janvier 2007

Auteur : ekeby de wisconsin

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

I disagree with the other reviewer here; I think you can see these three movies individually, although you must see them in the correct order. To see all three in one sitting strikes me as something that might almost be impossible, not just physically, but emotionally.

It is beyond me how these films escaped my attention all these years--I'd only become aware of them recently. Clearly, this trilogy is one of the great film achievements of all time, right up there with Eisenstein and Fellini. Never mind that the message of the films are overwhelming emotionally--the sheer technical achievement of making them is almost beyond my comprehension. The cinematography is first rate all the way through--the acting is the best you'll ever see. You are not watching a movie, you're sharing the experiences of people in impossible situations.

Don't read reviews, don't even read the DVD box (as I did on the first one) because you may encounter spoilers. This is one experience you do NOT want to have spoiled. Just be aware this is very serious fare, it is a drama in every sense of the word. There are moments of incredible tenderness, but there is absolutely nothing to laugh at--there is NO comic relief of any kind. it is deadly serious all the way through.

I wasn't particularly eager to watch Human Condition because, knowing the plot summary, it sounded like too much of a downer. Yes, the subject is depressing, but great art is uplifting. This is great art.

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3 utilisateurs sur 3 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
sympathy for the Japanese devil, 28 juillet 2008

Auteur : MisterWhiplash de Etats-Unis

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

This third part of the Human Conditon trilogy is my personal favorite, which says a lot considering how sensational the first two films were. For Soldier's Prayer, Masaki Kobayashi takes the 'hero' of the series, Kaji, out of the war-zone and now as a fully-formed leader of a militia-level group of soldiers who are just looking to get home. In a sense this is what the series is about- the kind of same sense that Lord of the Rings is about destroying a ring and getting back home- only this time laced with the kind of dread and doom that most directors wouldn't come close to trying let alone accomplishing. It's a tale of survival, not just physically and mortally, but spiritually- the human spirit, I mean to say. Even as Kaji drifts further along to his doom in that freezing Siberian tundra, his spirit and conscience and hopes to get back to Machiko are still intact. It's not simply "he died, the end," though if you feel tears welling up in your eyes it's not cruel in manipulation. This is heartbreak cinema at its most crushing, and honest.

And Kobayashi also makes it about ruminating on war-time once it's come to a close; he uses flashbacks and voice-over to emphasize this time, unlike in previous films, what the characters (mostly Kaji but sometimes others) are haunted by and wish for, the bodies they've lain in their paths or the rot they've witnessed (one moment that will haunt me is the Soviet truck dumping the woman's body, played back a second time after first shown in long-shot in a closer angle). It's also exciting seeing Kobayashi trying new styles and methods to amp up the tension and atmosphere, as seen incredibly in those dire forest scenes with Kaji, his men, and the tag-alongs looking for any food and sanity available. The tone for the first part of the picture is certain in its uncertainty, of where these soldiers and Kaji will go to, if they're lost or going the right way, if they'll get caught. And yet, even with the grim scenes of violence and bloodshed (more graphic than you might expect) and fatalism put to 11, a few bits of the poetic beauty from past films emerge here (my favorite was a simple scene of a woman washing her face on the riverside).

By the time the second half comes around, it becomes the darkest it's been in the trilogy as Kaji and his men surrender to the Soviets and things have come full circle for our main character from the first film, kind-hearted labor supervisor to hardened POW witnessing the same BS he saw on the other side years before. It's also here that Kobayashi strikes his toughest and most absorbing ground with the socio-political content. Now it's not simply questioning the methods of Japanese, but socialism vs. fascism, whatever either really may be, how terrible things become between two different peoples in a room without a right connection (in a great scene we see Kaji on a quasi-trial for sabotage and his interpreter intentionally botches it up), and, equally tragic, the betrayal of ones own people as seen by Tange episode.

This goes without saying the last fifteen minutes or strike the deepest chords, but the entire picture is just about perfect by accumulating all that's happened to and around Kaji, and not losing any of the meaning in the themes while at the same time keeping it personal, intimate cinema. You might even laugh a few times from the moments of relief by the supporting characters, and Kobayashi even navigates those little dialogs and gallows humor cleverly in the midst of such horror and drama. But, really, it's the Tatsuya Nakadai show. This and Ran are his best performances, bar-none, and particularly here he's able to express Kaji's growth as a leader, as a torn conscience, as a rejector of anything regarding duty and service to country just to survive, as a now somewhat accepted killer (the one murder of the Russian guard keeps at him for a while), and as a lost soul unable to get back to his old life with Machiko. It's an incredible transformation over the course of ten hours that marks him as one of the greats to come out of his country.

Overall, the trilogy is an immense, overwhelming feat of intelligent, sorrowful film-making that laments what is capable in the worst of men while giving us a hero to root for, for all his misgivings and eventual flaws, and to finally see as an essentially good and moral person becoming whole on the Japanese side of World War 2. A+

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2 utilisateurs sur 3 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Kobayashi's The Human Condition, three parts, seen August 2008, 4 août 2008

Auteur : cervus35 de Etats-Unis

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

By 1945 four and a half million Japanese soldiers were trying to return home from China (Manchuria), a land they had victimized for fourteen years. Japan's defeated government had de facto abandoned its soldiers and civilians, including those who had been sent to occupy Manchuria. The Japanese soldiers and their colonist families tried to make their way back to Japan as well as they could. In this harsh and relentless film, few aspects of society offer solace for the hard wartime lives of the Japanese soldiers and their Chinese victims. The army that the Japanese worshiped during wartime is corrupt and cruel, and senior soldiers spend more time abusing and humiliating new recruits than fighting the enemy. The emperor the Japanese adored as a god is hardly mentioned. Religion of any kind is hardly mentioned. Parents are hardly mentioned. As for women, only one soldier, Kaji, loves and respects his wife; women in all other instances are prostitutes or targets of rape. Every institution humans count on for comfort or loyalty in peacetime has been corrupted by the circumstances of war, or has simply disappeared. Only love between individuals gives a few of the characters the strength to carry on.

It's bleak, folks, and it doesn't let up for nine hours. So if you get a chance to see it or if it ever comes out on DVD, prepare yourself for something long and serious. I saw it in August 2008 at Film Forum in NYC. I don't think it has ever been available on video in the US, but now that Film Forum has given lead actor Tatsuya Nakadai a well-deserved retrospective, perhaps Criterion will bring it out.

I liked the film very much, but I have to mention a few negatives. First, the music. It's always in your face, telling you what to think, and its style is 1950s Hollywood epic. Second, the overall atmosphere. The movie's Drama with a capital D is often overdone, and many shots are held too long, after the point is made. It's hard to admire all of the film, but there's no doubt that it's moving and serious.

If you like the actors of the Japanese golden era (1945-65), almost all of them are here. Aside from the lead, Tatsuya Nakadai, we see: Nobuo Nakamura; So Yamamura; Keiji Sada; Minoru Chiaki, playing not his usual cheery character, but a sadistic army man; Seiji Miyaguchi, the taciturn expert swordsman of the Seven Samurai, here given a lot to say; Eijiro Tono, the greatest drunk in Japanese film (Tokyo Story), here in a cameo but still, as always, in the kitchen; Chishu Ryu; Hideko Takamine; Susumu Fujita, one of Kurosawa's early stalwarts, in an excellent small part; and I've probably forgotten a few. Enjoy. Signed, Don Buck.

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17 utilisateurs sur 34 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
not the gangster slash-em-up buddy film you thought it would be, 5 mai 2004
Auteur : (errandjones@hotmail.com) de Annandale, NY

If you have any remote interest in film go see this right away. Don't bother watching if you are too scared to attempt the entire 10 hours in one sitting. It's worth it and then some. The actor playing Kaji was terrific and each part turns out better than the last (everything really, the acting/camera work... all the bells and whistles just sound better the further in you get). It definitely struck me as something Adolfas Mekas would totally dig, which says a lot. This is a must see. If you decide to bring the wife and kids (or husband and mother-in-law or what- have-you) just be warned: this movie involves a fair amount of human suffering, on and off the screen. -Ed Hellman.

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