Cinema
Fires on the Plain
野火
Kon Ichikawa · 1959
Synopsis
At the end of 1944, on Leyte, the Japanese army is cut off from everything. Private Tamura, who has tuberculosis, is a burden to his company: he is ordered to report to the field hospital and, if he is not admitted, to kill himself with his grenade. Turned away, he wanders alone on roads held by the Allies, among a hostile population, according to Turner Classic Movies, and meets Japanese soldiers who are increasingly dehumanised, according to Criterion, in a devastated landscape where hunger governs everything.
Context
The film adapts the book of a writer who had known this war in the Philippines, and the screenplay is by Wada Natto; Turner Classic Movies associates the writer himself with the screenplay. Produced by Nagata Masaichi for Daiei, it was released on 3 November 1959, with Funakoshi Eiji as Tamura. Turner Classic Movies regards it as one of the most unsparing studies of Japan's role in the war.
Who it is for
One hundred and four minutes, in black and white and in subtitled Japanese, harsh from start to finish, to be reserved for adults.
Prizes and reception
Golden Sail at the Locarno festival in 1961, it is counted among its director's major films.