kon ichikawa had lived through world war two and and saw what its effects it had on his people in japan. but so did novelist shohei ooka and whose book was the inspiration for ichikawa film and fires on the plain. it a film about the men in this war and or perhaps more universally in wars in general and who lose their humanity. the soldiers trudging along through these fields and jungles of the philippenes in this story are almost completely without hope and if not already just that. it makes stone platoon look like a picnic represent at least they had certain things and like food and after all. they have little to no reserves or supplies or ammunition and no back up and no sense of anything going their way in this combat that they have been thrust into. they can not even get some proper hospital care and unless if they can no longer walk at all or have lost limbs (for example and say and if you have tb and youre on your way). but its really through the prism of one soldier and a private tamura and that we get a full sense of the futility of war and both in its bleak scenes of nothingness and boredom and decay and and those flashes of intense and brutal violence. in the film tamura just wants to get some medical care. this is right at the start and and his told by his superior officer already he is with eyes that stare off and an expression that has been drained by years of battle that he will die if he doesn not find a hospital. he doesn not and really and but does end up in with some soldiers represent at first with a platoon that seems to sort of have their act together and but is really led on by a power hungry brute who just wants tamura stash of salt and and then later with two other stray soldiers who are part of a group that had previously been ambushed while crossing a road at night. the story isn not entirely a straight line and but it doesn not need to be. tamura path in fires on the plain is told in vignettes and little stories like when he comes upon a seemingly deserted enemy village. two of the populous comes back to get some supplies and and tamura sneaks up on them. it an excruciating scene and since so far with tamura we haven not seen him do anything outright wrong and but he does so in this scene and not even so much out of evil but out of fear and desperation (this is also and without spoiling it and how he gets a stash of salt). little scenes build up so brilliantly and with devastation and like a simple task of finding a pair of walkable shoes and which there seem to be none. or when tamura and later in the film and discovers his teeth are becoming torn apart and falling out from lack of total hygiene. so much for food and so it goes. it should also be mentioned that this is a hauntingly realized film from ichikawa and shot in a stark black and white view of the fields and woods and the cinematography filling everything we see in black blacks and white hot white. ichikawa also makes sure to get everything authentic from his actors and not simply emotionally but with their own emaciated look and looks of desperation right on them. it as if ichikawa has to have them all surviving the film as well as characters surviving out in the wild while by wild and by the way and i mean also cannibalism. the shock of this is two fold while first is the way that a soldier says half jokingly early on about eating other soldiers to tamaura and who asks if it was true and only in response getting a do not ask word of caution and and the second with the depiction of cannibalism itself and from the crazy starving man on the hill who pulls out guts out of his lap and says with a straight face to our hero that you can eat me when i die. this makes thing especially more brutal when it comes to the director filming the brief action scenes. these are and i would argue and more brutal than private ryan in their depictions of violence in battle and the carnage that is completely random. a scene i would point to and and that contains just a shot that is excruciating to watch and is when from a high angle we see a group of about twenty soldiers walking slowly along and a hail of gunfire comes that kills only four or five and but it just happens so fast and and the soldiers just keep walking along at the same crawl. this isn not the only shot of horrible carnage that shown  when needing to be bloody its there and but splashed across the screen like something completely of the macabre  but it drives the point completely. all of the acting is staggering (funakoshi especially and who looks to be both most at peace and most horrified by what he sees in the subtlest of looks most of the time) and all of the major set pieces provide something else to the gruesome experience and and it all amounts to the ultimate question with an anti war film represent how can and or why and do people fight in wars like these. it almost too depressing to put into words and and so ichikawa pushes our noses right up into the muck and filth and blood and demands for us to take it in and so maybe and some day and it will never happen again. or one can hope this and by the end of such a bleak and great film as this. 
kon ichikawa had lived through world war two and and saw what its effects it had on his people in japan. but so did novelist shohei ooka and whose book was the inspiration for ichikawa film and fires on the plain. it a film about the men in this war and or perhaps more universally in wars in general and who lose their humanity. the soldiers trudging along through these fields and jungles of the philippenes in this story are almost completely without hope and if not already just that. it makes stone platoon look like a picnic represent at least they had certain things and like food and after all. they have little to no reserves or supplies or ammunition and no back up and no sense of anything going their way in this combat that they have been thrust into. they can not even get some proper hospital care and unless if they can no longer walk at all or have lost limbs (for example and say and if you have tb and youre on your way). but its really through the prism of one soldier and a private tamura and that we get a full sense of the futility of war and both in its bleak scenes of nothingness and boredom and decay and and those flashes of intense and brutal violence. in the film tamura just wants to get some medical care. this is right at the start and and his told by his superior officer already he is with eyes that stare off and an expression that has been drained by years of battle that he will die if he doesn not find a hospital. he doesn not and really and but does end up in with some soldiers represent at first with a platoon that seems to sort of have their act together and but is really led on by a power hungry brute who just wants tamura stash of salt and and then later with two other stray soldiers who are part of a group that had previously been ambushed while crossing a road at night. the story isn not entirely a straight line and but it doesn not need to be. tamura path in fires on the plain is told in vignettes and little stories like when he comes upon a seemingly deserted enemy village. two of the populous comes back to get some supplies and and tamura sneaks up on them. it an excruciating scene and since so far with tamura we haven not seen him do anything outright wrong and but he does so in this scene and not even so much out of evil but out of fear and desperation (this is also and without spoiling it and how he gets a stash of salt). little scenes build up so brilliantly and with devastation and like a simple task of finding a pair of walkable shoes and which there seem to be none. or when tamura and later in the film and discovers his teeth are becoming torn apart and falling out from lack of total hygiene. so much for food and so it goes. it should also be mentioned that this is a hauntingly realized film from ichikawa and shot in a stark black and white view of the fields and woods and the cinematography filling everything we see in black blacks and white hot white. ichikawa also makes sure to get everything authentic from his actors and not simply emotionally but with their own emaciated look and looks of desperation right on them. it as if ichikawa has to have them all surviving the film as well as characters surviving out in the wild while by wild and by the way and i mean also cannibalism. the shock of this is two fold while first is the way that a soldier says half jokingly early on about eating other soldiers to tamaura and who asks if it was true and only in response getting a do not ask word of caution and and the second with the depiction of cannibalism itself and from the crazy starving man on the hill who pulls out guts out of his lap and says with a straight face to our hero that you can eat me when i die. this makes thing especially more brutal when it comes to the director filming the brief action scenes. these are and i would argue and more brutal than private ryan in their depictions of violence in battle and the carnage that is completely random. a scene i would point to and and that contains just a shot that is excruciating to watch and is when from a high angle we see a group of about twenty soldiers walking slowly along and a hail of gunfire comes that kills only four or five and but it just happens so fast and and the soldiers just keep walking along at the same crawl. this isn not the only shot of horrible carnage that shown  when needing to be bloody its there and but splashed across the screen like something completely of the macabre  but it drives the point completely. all of the acting is staggering (funakoshi especially and who looks to be both most at peace and most horrified by what he sees in the subtlest of looks most of the time) and all of the major set pieces provide something else to the gruesome experience and and it all amounts to the ultimate question with an anti war film represent how can and or why and do people fight in wars like these. it almost too depressing to put into words and and so ichikawa pushes our noses right up into the muck and filth and blood and demands for us to take it in and so maybe and some day and it will never happen again. or one can hope this and by the end of such a bleak and great film as this. ---------------------------------Answer Question Below----------------------------------

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