Human Condition I - No Greater Love

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Summary: The Real History of Japanese War Crimes
Review: When Kobayashi undertook the immense project of filming Junpei Gomikawa's popular wartime novel (not, as an earlier viewer stated, by Shohei Ooka - who wrote the otherwise magnificent Fires on the Plain, later filmed by Ichikawa) he had been a director for only six years but had already proven himself as a director of "problem" films, tackling uncomfortable subjects with a straightforward candor. With 'The Human Condition' he emerged as one of Japan's master filmmakers. This trilogy of films is something on the order of Claude Lanzmann's film 'Shoah.' It documents events which Japan has yet to come to terms with - atrocities committed by the Imperial Army in China and Manchuria. Along with Ichikawa's 'Harp of Burma' and 'Fires on the Plain,' Kobayashi's 'The Human Condition' was made at precisely the right moment in Japan, when the war generation had the resources to look back at the war with enough honesty to reveal the full extent of Japan's defeat, a subject which is remains disturbing even today.