Film Review: The Human Condition. Film Review Assignment.

Film Review: The Human Condition
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The film, The Human Condition, is a Japanese movie that was released between 1959 and 1961, and it took about 10 hours of work. The film is an exploration of Kaji, a Japanese who navigates the pacific in search of learning during the Second World War. Moreover, Kaji undertakes the adventure under a very depressive situation following the end of the war, and he is focused on his survival. The film begins with a night shot that presents, at a time when it is snowing, and there is the presence of a large tunnel on which a military patrol is visible. In the pitch darkness, Kaji appears in the company of Michiko, and this gives the film a stunning start as well as the sets are thematic expression. While the snow falls on the ground, the predicament of Kaji is captured since he is unknown land, and the presence of the blockade is a sign of the army as the enforcing code. The film portrays the hostels where Michiko and Kaji lived as an essential part of their lives but also a place where both wanted to leave and get married; the only way they will begin their own family. However, Kaji is undecided, and he feels that a move towards marriage can be the state of ridicule from his peers, and this becomes highly contradictory to him.[Prince, Stephen. A Dream of Resistance: The Cinema of Kobayashi Masaki. Rutgers University Press, 2017.]
Setting and plot
The film explores the adventures of Kaji from the point he sets foot on the camp as a naïve supervisor to an army soldier, and his rise amidst a corrupt system that proves to be a hindrance to his beliefs than an advantage. The trilogy film begins with No Greater Love (1959) when Kaji marries Michiko despite his tension on life. Later, the couple moves to a mine where Kaji is employed as a supervisor, and he is assigned to check on Chinese prisoners. Still, he is bothered by the brutal behavior shown to the prisoners and lack of dignity that is imposed by the imperial system through forced labor and ends with his dismissal from the military service. On the other hand, the second film of the collection, Road to Eternity (1959), Kaji loses his job for protecting the Chinese prisoners, and he is forced into supervision by the Japanese army. While under seclusion, he is given the most difficult duties by his sympathizers, who expect him to recruit new students in the military and train them for the preparation of specific responsibilities. Michiko feels for his husband and pleads with the military authority to reconsider their decision at the barracks. As a result, she decides to visit him and show her support and love. At this time, Kaji feels that his escape would flee him from the over supervision that has also been subjected to his friend, Shinjo, who is subjected to harsh working conditions due to his brother's communist activities. Eventually, he decides to adhere to the military service and continues with his duties until communists attack the Japanese during an onslaught.[Martin, Philip. "Cinema's vital histories: wabi-cinema, forces and the aesthetics of resistance." Film-philosophy 21, no. 3 (2017): 351.]
The third film, A Soldier’s Prayer (1961), starts with Kaji trying to escape the Soviet forces and search for his comrades. He is portrayed as one who is unable to abandon combat as he tries to rejoin the military and leads the refugees in the camp in a planned escape. Moreover, Kaji encounters the Japanese forces, and they deny them food claiming that they were deserters. Later, Kaji approaches a hideout; he is almost killed in the company of his colleagues as they try to escape the wheat fields, but they manage to survive, and soon they ambush the Chinese, leading to commotions that are conflicting to the two sides of the divide. While the Japanese army and Chinses forces are always fighting and they both lack a sound strategy to counter the fights and lead to numerous attacks on women and children, it is clear that they must surrender to the Soviets. Ultimately, the treatment of that Kaji faces is the ultimate battle that prompts him to invade the communists’ camp, and while planning to escape, he decides to kill the soldier who has captured his friend, Terada. Unfortunately, his stay in captivity is full of trials, and he thinks about his wife, and while he tries to fight off the harsh environment, he begs for mercy. The Chinese are not merciful, and he ends up dying in the wasteland covered by snow.[Prince, Stephen. A Dream of Resistance: The Cinema of Kobayashi Masaki. Rutgers University Press, 2017.]
Summary
The film is lengthy and comprises of and revolves around the life of Kaji, who is not only self-diligent but also exhibits patience from time to time. Furthermore, he tries to walk away from the perfect life that has created by the military in a bid to find his happiness and establish his family independent from a military watch. In this case, he considers the flaws that have been caused by the corrupt system and challenges them, but his strategy is cut off when the rivals capture him. The film tells of a condensed period that after the second world war when the Japanese struggled to restore their country following the events that ruined their lives and opened their boundaries to foreign forces. While the camps were run by the violent methods that led to the destruction of the imperial army, the military leaders are incapable of building sobriety during the war. The incidents that unfold are a source of disenchantment and anger that continues to cause unjust killings and broken promises, such as Kaji's failure to return to his wife and his death on the battlefield. Furthermore, the unjust killings open up the region to the fundamentally inhumane treatment of the locals at a point that they wished...