Men and War / Senso to nigen (1970-73)

Like Kobayashi’s Human Condition, Satsuo Yamamoto’s less well known Men and War was based on a novel by Jumpei Gomikawa dealing with Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. Also like Human Condition, Men and War is a trilogy that spans 9½ hours, not counting intermissions. However, they take completely different approaches to their story. Where Human Condition …

Flag in the Mist / Kiri no hata (1965)

Flag in the Mist is an engrossing example of a kind of movie we rarely associate with Japanese cinema. Like so many Japanese films, it starts as one thing and then shifts into something else entirely, but in this case, the shift is hard to describe in any detail without some significant spoilers, so I …

The Ball at the Anjo House / Anjo-ke no butokai (1947)

Bankrupted by the land reforms and new taxes of the Occupation era, a formerly wealthy family decide to hold one last ball in their home before they lose it. Echoes of Chekhov, particularly of The Cherry Orchard, run through everything we see. Though I think it would be unfair to call it a direct adaptation, …