Masaki Kobayashi

 Masaki Kobayashi




The Thick-Walled Room (1956)

I Will Buy You (1956)

Black River (1957)

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)

The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)



RANKED:


5. Black River (1957)


Masaki Kobayashi's 1957 film "Black River" finds a group of tenants in a shack around a U.S. military base in Japan. As the landlady attempts to sell, drama stirs between the inhabitants. The central story focuses on a love triangle between a good-natured student, his innocent girlfriend, and a coldhearted petty criminal. "Black River" demonstrates the sordid lawlessness and rampant corruption that occurred during the U.S. occupation of Japan. While the good-natured characters attempt to fight against this corruption, everyone else just seems to fall in line.



4. I Will Buy You (1956)


Released the same year as his prison drama, "The Thick-Walled Room," Masaki Kobayashi's 1956 film "I Will Buy You" centers on a major league baseball recruiter attempting to win over the contract of an up-and-coming homerun hitter. The film differentiated itself from most Japanese works of this period by centering on a topic not typically discussed. As its characters bride, manipulate, and do everything in their power to yield a contract, their humanity begins to crumble. Every person turns into a commodity, every communication turns into negotiation, and every decision becomes a contract. In the post-war landscape surrounded by American imperialism, Japan was swept up in a capitalism and consumerism. "I Will Buy You" is a staunch attempt to critique this burgeoning attitude of wealth accumulation. 



3. The Thick-Walled Room (1956)


Despite having made five films before 1956, Masaki Kobayashi's career only truly started as an auteur when he released "The Thick-Walled Room." Although it was filmed in 1953, the Japanese government prohibited its released due to possible conflict with the Americans due to anti-American sentiments within the film. "The Thick-Walled Room" centers on a group of B and C class war criminals imprisoned for their crimes. Their traumatic reflections, along with the their resentments over the Americans and their own government, paint a very complex picture of these prisoners. The film caused a lot of controversy. But, it also raised a lot of questions about the mistreatment of labelled 'war criminals' and posits notions of innocence on these men. Along with this, the film criticizes the Japanese government's militarization and misuse of public support. "The Thick Wall-Room" started a series of films by Kobayashi that centers on the complexities of the human soul and took Japanese cinema into new terrains.






2. The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)


The second installment of Masaki Kobayashi's "Human Condition" trilogy, called "Road to Eternity" was released in the same year as its predecessor, 1959. Following the continued story of Kaji, a pacifist during World War II, "Road to Eternity" demonstrates the difficulties in maintaining one's humanity during the most inhumane conditions. After losing his military exemption for protecting Chinese prisoners, Kaji is now a conscript in Japan's army. Labelled as a "red,' Kaji faces mistreatment and is given the most difficult duties. However, after given command over older conscripts, he attempts to restructure military training to reflect his pacifist ideals. What "Road to Eternity" demonstrates, along with the other installments, is how  institutional demoralization and systematic corrupt malpractice can completely wither away the ethics and morals of the human soul. Violence and war only beget violence and war, even amongst the ranks of those fighting on the same side. 






1. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)


In making "The Human Condition" trilogy, Masaki Kobayashi crafted perhaps one of the greatest Japanese epics of its Golden Age. Many of the film coming out of this cinematic renaissance either directly or indirectly reconciled with Japan's dark relationship with World War II. These films were deeply reflective of the war's far reaching effects - not just on the post-war period that followed - but on an entire people reflecting on their own complex complicity in the moral corruption that ensued. "The Human Condition" not only directly touched on these themes, but epitomized the entire cinematic landscape of a nation. Part I of this trilogy, subtitled "No Greater Love" adeptly explores the difficulty in remaining pacifistic against a nationalistic machine that demands adherence to its depravity. This unflinching view of a nation's own recent past would be fumbled in the hands of anyone other than Kobayashi, whose sprawling epic is as courageous as its central character.




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