Human Condition II: Road to Eternity, The (1959)
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Review #1,390 |
THE SCOOP
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Kokinji Katsura
Plot: As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.
Genre: Drama / War
Awards: -
Runtime: 181min
Rating: Not rated (likely to be PG13 for mature themes and some intense scenes)
International Sales: Shochiku
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“He who
shouts loudest isn't always the bravest.”
The story of Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) continues
in the second part of Masaki Kobayashi's The
Human Condition trilogy, titled Road
to Eternity. Told in two chapters, the
three-hour long epic sees the headstrong man suffer the fate and indignation of
being a recruit undergoing basic military training.
Forced by the Japanese army to do so as
‘punishment’ for adopting pacifist ideals and having a humanitarian heart
towards Chinese prisoners (the subject of the first film, No Greater Love (1959)), Kaji, ever so determined to last the
course, spiritedly endures the hardship and constant physical and verbal
assault from his superiors.
Much like the structure of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), Road to Eternity is split into two
halves—training and war. The gruelling
daily lives of recruits, pushed to their limits so that they could fight at the
front, is a regressively dehumanizing experience for them.
There is so much screaming and slapping going
on that it is sometimes oddly amusing to see how and why men when camped
together would resort to tactics to flaunt their perceived masculinity in a homo-sadomasochistic
way. Kaji, embattled but never defeated,
works his way around the system, tirelessly defending the weak.
Kobayashi once again delivers a well-executed
film, which I feel is even more riveting than the first. Three hours feel like ninety minutes in what
is the cine-equivalent of a page-turner.
In a bittersweet counterpoint to men and war, a sequence in the film
sees Kaji's wife, desperate to visit him despite the torturous journey, spending
the night with him in a camp storeroom.
It is a beautiful, elegiac moment that poses the age-old question
(though I’m sure not intended by Kobayashi): Why make war when one can make
love?
The final hour or so sees the Japanese army getting
ready to be attacked by Soviet forces. As
far as depictions of war go, Kobayashi’s film captures the fear and chaos of
battle with a clear anti-war eye. Because
we know so well the emotions and values of Kaji, we come to sympathise with his
predicament from a human level. More
Kajis are direly needed in powerful positions around the world, less the human
race careens into the irreversible that is the next world war.
Verdict: The second part of the trilogy is a riveting
and well-executed ‘Full Metal Jacket’-esque treatment of basic military training
and the horrors of war.
GRADE: A-
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