Film Forum

Japan, 1956
Directed by Kon Ichikawa
Screenplay by Natto Wada
Starring Rentarô Mikuni, Shôji Yasui, Jun Hamamura
Music by Akira Ifukube
Approx. 116 min. DCP. 

After an Imperial Japanese Army regiment surrenders to British forces in Burma, the platoon’s harp player (Shôji Yasui), thought to be dead, disguises himself as a Buddhist monk and stumbles upon spiritual enlightenment. Magnificently shot in hushed black and white, Ichikawa’s eloquent meditation on beauty coexisting with death remains one of the Japanese cinema’s most overwhelming antiwar statements, both tender and brutal in its grappling with Japan’s wartime legacy. Based on a popular Japanese children’s novel intended to teach Buddhist tenets.

Presented with support from the Reginald S. Reinhardt, Ling-Makekau Fund for Asia-Pacific Films

A JANUS FILMS RELEASE

Reviews

“A HAUNTING ELEGIAC REVERIE.”
– Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

“Poetically photographed… brilliantly dots the players against the looming terrain.”
– Howard Thompson, The New York Times