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The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

Ningen no joken III (The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer)

1961

Masaki Kobayashi

Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Yusuke Kawazu, Tamao Nakamura ...

8.3

2,637

War. Drama The protagonist is the pacifistic Kaji. Strong-armed into the Japanese military during World War II, Kaji has reluctantly learned to kill on the battlefields. Upon his country's surrender, Kaji and some comrades embark on an epic journey on foot southward to where Kaji hopes to rejoin Michiko. After surviving many perils he is captured by the Red Army and subjected to treatment that echoes that meted out to the Chinese.

	Author	Review
United States	Variety	"[It] is remarkably self-contained and needs no explanations from its companion pictures to make its story-points clear."	POS
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"Kobayashi’s monumental film can clarify and enrich your understanding of what it is to be alive."	POS
United States	Matthew Connolly Slant	"[Its] moments ground 'Human Condition‘s grand message in painfully human terms, making this prolonged journey an ultimately enriching and worthwhile one (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Aaron Hillis Village Voice	"An arduous watch in ways beyond its creator's intentions (...) Nakadai gives a wonderfully wringer-wrung performance, and (...) Yoshio Miyajima's black-and-white Scope spaciousness is stunning"	NEU
United States	Kevin Thomas Los Angeles Times	"One of the world cinema's great anti-war dramas (...) bleak and eloquent"	POS
United States	Grady Hendrix Slate	"What keeps 'The Human Condition' from becoming a wallow in despair is the rigor and discipline of Kobayashi's filmmaking."	POS
United States	David Fear Time Out	"Masaki Kobayashi’s epic, exhausting examination of one man’s spiritual descent is an extraordinary achievement by any standard (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

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