HARP OF BURMA
Japan, 1956, 116 minutes, Black and white.
Directed by Kon Ichikawa.
Harp of Burma is a Japanese version of the end of the war, a version of simple humanity and piety. The story is not complex -a soldier amongst the surrendering Japanese is commissioned to persuade a group that the war is over. He fails. Stunned in the firing and explosions, he is separated from his fellows and wanders Burma discovering, literally, heaps of war dead. This so affects his attitude that he becomes a wandering priest, burying the dead, preferring to remain in Burma to atone for the war, hoping that his small mission will have a message for his people. Japanese film style is more formalised than western styles, yet the Japanese soldiers appear as little different from the English who have won the war.
Ichikawa uses faces and posed stances to convey his message as well as harp music and massed chorus effect, especially with both Japanese and English singing to each other the melody of 'Home, Sweet Home".
This is a moving anti-war film from Japan (contrast the tough Merrill's Marauders also set in Burma). John Boorman’s 1968 Hell in the Pacific shows an American and a Japanese alone on an island during the war and their private war which seems so ridiculous, then their common efforts to survive. The similarities of Japanese and Americans (as well as the differences in manner and life style) emerge in the 1970 Tora! Tora! Tora!
1. How different is this war film from an American war film about the same theme? (e.g. Merrill's Marauders - set in Burma).
2. How does the typical Japanese soldier, as seen by the Japanese, appear to you?
3. If the Japanese soldier appears to you as little different from his American and British counterpart, what does this show you about human nature and about wars?
4. The film states at the beginning and end that Burma is red with the blood of war. How is this shown in the film? Why should Burma - far from Japan and England - have suffered so much?
5. Did the film help you to understand the Japanese in the war situation of 1945? Those willing to surrender, those who wanted to resist in the cave, the fear of prisoner-of-war camps?
6. What was the point of the singing of "Home, Sweet Home" by both sides?
7. What role did music play in the film? How did the Japanese respond to singing and harp music?
8. Did you sympathise with the hero - his bravery on his mission, his harp playing, his looking after the war dead?
9. What was the hero's reaction to so many war dead? Why did he want to bury as many as he could? How did all this change his life?
10. Why did he become a wandering priest? (Note the respect he was given everywhere).
11. How did he contrast with the soldiers in the camp?
12. What was the message of his new way of life - atoning, burying the dead? He said he thought that by contributing some good he would help peace.
13. Did the soldiers returning on the boat understand what he was doing? one soldier says he wonders whether the Japanese people would understand. Do you think this film would have helped a Japanese audience to see the enormity of the war and the need for atonement and reconstruction?
