In Japanese with English subtitles.

Although war has broken out, conscientious objector Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) hopes his job as manager for a mining company will keep him from being conscripted. His latest pet project is to improve working conditions for Chinese laborers in a far-flung mine, and, although his employers have their doubts, they agree to it. Once there, Kaji is dejected to find very little support for his ideas, and as POWs are introduced to the workforce, he risks his position by helping them.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

ABOUT THE EVENT:

Masaki Kobayashi’s mammoth humanist drama is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. Filmed and released in three parts, the nine-and-a-half-hour THE HUMAN CONDITION (NINGEN NO JOKEN), adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji (handsome Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai) from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of its nation’s wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi’s riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best.