Human destiny

Parts I and II: There is no stronger love

Story

The action of the first part takes place in Manchuria during the period of its occupation by the Japanese. Time of action - the end of the war. In the center of the story is a certain Kaji, a young man working in a Japanese coal company. Having married his beloved Michiko, Kaji with her goes to work at the Manchu mines. The hero is a leftist intellectual and is opposed to the imperialist invasion of Japan into China and the exploitation of the Chinese people by the Japanese militarists. It is fruitless, but still relentlessly trying to introduce humane methods of supervision for Chinese prisoners of war, whose labor is exploited in mines. Chinese prisoners of war kept in the camp, behind barbed wire under current. Kaji is trying in every way to alleviate the fate of the Chinese, to the extent that the group of Chinese prostitutes leads to them, since there is a brothel at the mine. China's new friend Kaji, Chen, raised in Japan, falls in love with one of the prostitutes.

The mine manager is displeased with Kaji’s over-soft working methods and sets a trap for him. A prostitute tells Chen that he is up, and he unsuccessfully tries to warn Kaji. Then he rushes to the barbed wire and dies, like many other prisoners who have decided that the current is off and the road to freedom is open. After this incident, the police chief with his own sword, having previously moistened it with water so that the blade was sharper, cuts off the heads of three prisoners. Kaji’s patience is not infinite, he is not able to observe how Chinese prisoners of war are being killed. Kaji strongly protests atrocities. Other prisoners take advantage of this and raise a riot. Execution postponed. Military police arrest Kaji and torture him as "red." But instead of executing Kaji, he was fired from the coal company and called for military service, sending him to the front for certain death.

Cast

• Tatsuya Nakadai - Kaji
• Michio Aratama - Michiko, his wife
• Chikage Awasima - Tofuge Kin, a Chinese prostitute
• Ineko Arima - Sinran Yo, Chinese prostitute
• Keiji Sada - Kageyama
• Saw Yamamura - Oxima
• Akira Ishama - Chen, a Chinese prisoner of war
• Seiji Miyaguchi - Koritsu Oh
• Tooru Abe - Gunse
• Masao Mishima - Kuroki Sotho
• Eytaro Ozawa - Okazaki
• Koji Mitsui - Furuya
• Eijiro Tono - Manzuya's father
• Taiji Tonoyama - Ku

Premieres

•   - The national premiere of the film took place on January 15, 1959 ^[4] .
•   - premiere in the United States on December 14, 1959 ^[5] .
•   - The European premiere took place on August 31, 1960 as part of a film screening at the 21st Venice International Film Festival ^{[6] [5]} .

Awards and nominations

XXI Venice International Film Festival (1960) ^[6]

• Italian Union of Journalists Pasinetti Award - Masaki Kobayashi.
• San Giorgio Prize Culture Award (Saint George’s Cup) .
• Nomination for the Golden Lion (the main prize of the festival) .

Film tape "Blue Ribbon"

• 10th awards ceremony (for 1959) Won: ^[8]

• The award to the best actress of the second plan is Mitiyo Aratama (ex aequo: “The destiny of man 2” and “I want to be a clam”).

Film Prize "Mainiti" (1960) ^[9] .

• 14th awards ceremony (for 1959)

• Best Cinematography Award - Yoshio Miyajima (ex aequo: “Man’s Man 2”).

The prize of the magazine " Kinema Zympo " (1960)

• The award to the best actress of the second plan is Mitiyo Aratama (ex aequo: “Man’s Man 2”) ^[10] .
• The film was nominated for the Kinema Jumpo Award in the nomination for the best film of 1959, took the 5th place by the results of the vote ^[11] .

Parts III and IV: The Road to Eternity

Story

Kaji lost his right to be released from military service after defending Chinese prisoners of war from unjust punishment. As punishment, he was sent to serve in the Japanese Kwantung Army. Despite his excellent shooting training and strict discipline, Kaji pays a high price for his left-wing convictions. His wife, Michiko, by letter asked Commander Kaji to visit a military base to express her love and sympathy for her husband. Kaji and his wife are allowed to spend the night in a separate room.

When an outlaw soldier Obara kills himself after the humiliations that other soldiers subjected him, the situation escalates. Kaji, whom many of his colleagues consider to be a Communist, unsuccessfully tries to bring the commander of the Yoshidu detachment to the tribunal’s initiator’s hazing. Kaji intends to flee with his friend Shinju, who came to the front after his brother was arrested for communist propaganda. Rethinking things and realizing that the idea of ​​desertion will not bring him freedom, Kaji, who loves his wife very much, undertakes to continue his military service, despite all the problems.

Shinju is accused of letting a Chinese fisherman seize espionage. He is arrested, but when there is a noise around because of a fire, he flees. Yoshida chases after him and falls into the swamp. Kaji saves him, but soon Yoshida dies anyway. The Kaji branch is sent to the border. Kaji receives the title of Corporal and a team of recruits. He accepts the new assignment on the condition that the soldiers under his command are separated from the old soldiers who are cruel to the recruits. Often, Kaji himself was severely beaten by them, despite his close friendship with their commander, junior lieutenant Kageyama. Demoralized by the fall of Okinawa and the constant harassment of the old servicemen, Kaji and most of his men go to dig trenches. Their work was interrupted by the invasion of Soviet troops, which led to the devastating defeat of the Japanese and the death of Kageyama. Most of Kaji’s recruits were killed during the Soviet offensive. Kaji himself has to kill his soldier, distraught with fear. Kaji frantically starts looking for other survivors.

Cast

• Tatsuya Nakadai - Kaji
• Michio Aratama - Michiko
• Keiji Sada - Kageyama
• Fumio Watanabe - Sambho
• Jun Tatara - Junyi Hino
• Shoji Yasui - Sikan Minarai
• Kay Sato - Shinju
• Kunie Tanaka - Private Obara
• Yusuke Kawadzu - Private Terada
• Taketoshi Naito - Tanghe
• Susumu Fujita - Private Naruto
• Jun Hamamura - Doi Chui, Chinese
• Hisashi Igava - Masui

Premieres

•   - The national premiere of the film took place on November 20, 1959 ^[12] .
•   - The premiere in the United States took place in February 1961 ^[13] .
•   Germany - the European premiere of the film took place on January 12, 1962 in the Federal Republic of Germany ^[13] .

Awards and nominations

Film tape "Blue Ribbon"

• 10th awards ceremony (for 1959) Won: ^[8]

• The award to the best actress of the second plan is Mitiyo Aratama (ex aequo: “The destiny of human 1” and “I want to be a clam”).

Film Prize "Mainiti" (1960) ^[9] .

• 14th awards ceremony (for 1959)

• The Best Cinematography Award - Yoshio Miyajima (ex aequo: "Man 1 man").

The prize of the magazine " Kinema Zympo " (1960)

• The award to the best actress of the second plan is Mitiyo Aratama (ex aequo: “The destiny of human 1”) ^[10] .
• The film was nominated for the Kinema Jumpo Award in the nomination for the best film of 1959, according to the results of the voting it took the 10th place ^[11] .

Parts V and VI: Soldier's Prayer

Story

Japanese troops were defeated during the events of the second film, Kaji and some of his comrades tried to escape from the capture by Soviet troops and go in search of the remnants of the Kwantung Army in southern Manchuria. However, after the battle with the Russians, Kaji is increasingly afraid to fight and decides to abandon the army service. Instead, he leads his fellows and an increasing number of civilian refugees, trying to escape from the war zone and return to their homes. Lost in a dense forest, the Japanese begin to fight, but in the end, many die of hunger, poisonous mushrooms and suicides.

Coming out of the woods, Kaji and the refugees encounter regular troops of the Japanese army, who deny them food, accusing them of desertion. After that, he meets his friend Tanghe. They talk about the future of Japan. Kaji looks at him very pessimistically. Continuing the way further south, Kaji and his colleagues find shelter and food on the farm. But soon they were attacked from all sides by enemies, this time they were Chinese peasant fighters defending their fields and farms from looting. The prostitute, to whom Kaji had shown kindness, was killed by these partisans, and Kaji wants to fight them before leaving. However, they still have to retreat and pass through a blazing wheat field to break away from their pursuers.

Looking at how a Soviet truck deliberately crashes into a column of Japanese refugees, Kaji begins to ask questions about this Red Army, which he had previously respected because of his leftist views. Continuing on his way, Kaji and his group enter the Manchu village populated by refugees. They are much less afraid of Russian than the Japanese army. Soldiers and rural women indulge in sexual pleasures in which Kaji refuses to participate. When the Russian part arrives in the village, the woman pleads with Kaji not to join the battle and not shed the blood of the refugees in vain. Kaji agrees to surrender to Soviet troops.

Captured by the Red Army, Kaji and his comrades are being subjected to violence faced by Chinese prisoners of war from the first film of the trilogy. Kaji and his protégé Terada are forced to confront the Japanese officers who run the camp, serving the Russians. Kaji is increasingly disappointed with the camp conditions and Communist orthodoxy. When Terada is brought to exhaustion and death by cruel treatment from the Japanese officer Kirihara working with the Russians, Kaji decides to kill this man and then escape from the camp, which he succeeds in. He interrupts alms or steals food: just enough not to die of hunger. He still hopes to find his wife, Michiko, whom he has not seen for 700 days. He falls in the snow and dies.

Cast

• Tatsuya Nakadai - Kaji
• Michio Aratama - Michiko, his wife
• Hideko Takamine - Chinese Woman
• Yusuke Kawadzu - Terada
• Tisyu Ryu - elder settlement
• Taketoshi Naito - Tanghe
• Kyoko Kishida - Ryuko
• Yoshie Minami - refugee woman
• Nobuo Kaneko - Goto Kirihara
• Kin Sugai - middle-aged refugee
• Tamao Nakamura - a refugee girl
• Dzukichi Uno - senior in the group of refugees

Premieres

•   - The national premiere of the film took place on January 28, 1961 ^[14] .
•   Germany - the European premiere of the film took place on May 11, 1962 in the Federal Republic of Germany ^[15] .
•   - The premiere in the United States took place on August 5, 1970 . ^[15]

Awards and nominations

Film Prize "Mainiti" (1962).

• 16th Award Ceremony (1961) Won: ^[16]

• Award for the best film of 1961 - Masaki Kobayashi.
• Award to the best director - Masaki Kobayashi.
• The award to the best actor - Tatsuya Nakadai (ex aequo: " Immortal love ").
• Award to the best operator - Yoshio Miyajima.
• The award to the best screenwriter is Zenzo Matsuyama (ex aequo: “ Without a name, poor but beautiful ” and “ Two sons ”).

The prize of the magazine " Kinema Zympo " (1960)

• The film was nominated for the Kinema Jumpo Award in the nomination for the best film of 1961, took the 4th place according to the results of the vote ^[11] .

"The destiny of man" (or "Conditions of human existence") - a popular novel by the writer Djumpei Gomikawa . It reflected the personal impressions of the author, who spent all the war years on the front line, then, after the defeat of the Kwantung Army, was captured. Returning to his homeland, he took up the pen. Immediately after the first edition, the novel became a bestseller ^[7] . Kobayashi, recognizing the novel as an ideal material for himself, immediately jumped at the purchase of the rights to the adaptation, although it took a long time to persuade the management of the film company “ Sjetika ” to approve the project. Only when Kobayashi threatened to leave the studio did the film company bosses soften ^[17] . Even more than a decade after the last war, opposition to any criticism of the military regime in Japan was still widespread - and as soon as the film was made, Kobayashi was accused of anti-Japanese sentiment by some of his compatriots ^[17] .

Roman Gomikawa is highly autobiographical, but for Kobayashi he allowed to bring back vivid memories of his own wartime experiences. In 1942 , shortly after the commencement of his apprenticeship in the "Shotiku", he was drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria occupied by the Japanese. Like Kaji, the protagonist of the novel and the film, he found himself in constant conflict with the harsh spirit of the Imperial Army, refusing to rise above the rank of private in the service hierarchy. At the end of the war, like Kaji, he was captured and interned in a prisoner of war camp, although in the case of Kobayashi it was a little different - he was being held in Okinawa by the Americans, not the Russians, as in the case of the hero Kaji ^[17] .

During the shooting of the film, Kobayashi always had a copy of the original novel on hand, and he sought to be as faithful as possible to the work of Gomikawa. If certain scenes were in the book, but there were no such scenes in the script, they were added whenever possible. Actors were usually notified of these changes a day in advance so that they would have the opportunity to learn the text. Because of this desire for accuracy, Gomikawa was reportedly very pleased with the adaptation ^[18] .

Instead of hiring employees of the Shotika, Kobayashi hired the staff of the independent studio Ninjin Kurabu, which cost less. Kobayashi invited cameraman Yoshio Miyajima because he highly appreciated his past work with director Fumio Kamei . Despite many conversations in the frame in Chinese, none of the actors were Chinese. These lines sounded phonetically with accompanying Japanese subtitles. Due to the lack of Sino-Japanese relations at the time, Kobayashi was shooting nature in Hokkaido. This is the northernmost of the Japanese islands, the most suitable for the image of snowy Manchuria. Including the preliminary stage, the filming process of the Fate of the Human took four years ^[18] .

• "The destiny of man" (eng.) On the Internet Movie Database  
• "Man's Lot 2" (English) on the Internet Movie Database  
• "Man's Lot 3" (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database  

• Iwasaki, Akira . “Modern Japanese Cinema”, 1958, (translated from Japanese 1962, Translators: Vladimir Grivnin, L. Levin), - Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1962, S.524, (pp. 256-257).
• Iwasaki, Akira . The History of Japanese Cinema, 1961 (translated from Japanese 1966, Translators: Vladimir Grivnin, L. Levin and B. Raskin). - M.: Art, 1966, p. 320 (p. 198, 199).
• Gens, Inna Yuliusovna . “The Sword and Hiroshima” (Theme of the war in Japanese cinema), Moscow: Art, 1972. P. 168 (pp. 83–84).
• "Kinoslovar" / Edited by S. I. Yutkevich . - Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1966-1970. - T. 1 AL. - P. 976 (p. 788).
• "Kinoslovar" / Edited by S. I. Yutkevich . - Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1987. - P. 976 (p. 203, 523).
• Sato, Tadao . “Cinema of Japan”: Translation from English - M., “Rainbow”, 1988. - P.224 (p. 25, 209) ISBN 5-05-002303-3 .
• “ Director's Encyclopedia : Cinema of Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America”, Scientific Research Institute of Cinema, Vetrova T.N. (ed.), Mainland - M., 2001, p.140 (p. 61). ISBN 5-85646-053-7 .
• Lurcell, Jacques . "The author's encyclopedia of films" (Translated from the French. Sergey Kozin). - SP — M.: Rosebud Publishing, 2009. - Vol. 2. - P. 1032 (pp. 207–209).
• Richie, Donald , '' The Youngest Talents, '' in Sight and Sound (London), Spring 1960.
• Pendergast, Tom & Sara . International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. Volume 1. Directors. - 4 edition. - St.James Press, 2000. - P. 1536. (page 841–843) - ISBN 155862449X , 9781558624498
• Jacoby, Alexander . A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. - Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2008. - ISBN 978-1-933330 -53-252295
• Russell, Catherine . Classical Japanese cinema revisited. - Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011. P. 192. - ISBN 978-1-441 10-7-770