Busy few days, so I'm finally watching Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition- a new Criterion Collection release, and a mamoth sized film at 9 1/2 hours.
That's over 2 hours longer than Bela Tarr's Satantango!
Here's the trailer:
So far, so good. I'm a third of the way thru, and, naturally, some trims should have been made, but, since it's the length of a de facto miniseries, I tend to compare it to some of the classics of that genre, like Upstairs, Downstairs, Rich Man, Poor Man, Roots, and The Thornbirds. And it's better....so far.
A bit preachy, and actually a bit too tame in its depiction of Imperial atrocities at work camps, since, by most accounts, even visiting Nazi officials- men who were running the European death camps, were startled at the brutality of the Japanese treatment of POWs. Of course, the first part of this film came out in 1959, so some restraint is to be expected, but overall, I'm hooked into the main character; a humanist who's at wits with his inner self.
More to come!
