The Human Condition (1959)

This 10-hour film played recently at Film Forum in NYC, and since I am lucky enough to not have to work, I was able to catch all three parts over several weeks. It is a very good film, and occasionally profound--however, its insights are not enough to sustain its length. On the other hand, in terms of "sheer" watchability, the plot *is* sufficient, and the movie is rarely tedious or bloated.

My point is simple and almost a truism: the bigger an artistic work is, the more it has to offer "big" truths. This is why an excellent TV show like The Wire (a 1-hr program) is fundamentally lacking the depth of a merely "good" 2 hr film. It is not a matter of entertaining us for a set length of time. It is a matter of ambition and statement. Believe me, 2 hours of the Wire packaged together as a feature-length film would be sorely disappointing.

I feel silly dwelling on this aspect of common sense, but I suspect it is a bit elusive in its logical result: the best movies will be (those which "pull off" being) the longest, the best books will be the biggest, the greatest operas will be the most uncomfortable to sit through, etc. The "finely made" little thing has to be *that much* more finely made to compare. Thus, epic poetry > lyric.

Put in those stark terms, few are likely to agree with this "common sense" any more. Indeed, many are apt to get defensive. But again, these truisms have their logic: War and Peace, Paradise Lost, Wagner, Proust--are these not the great achievements of their respective forms?

Probably the finest made "little" film is The Rules of the Game. It says a lot about French society, but by way of types and microcosm. A movie like The Human Condition tries to say a lot by showing the "whole thing" itself. And the amount shown here is astonishingly vast. Nonetheless, the insight (which The Rules of the Game or The Leopard excel in) is a bit flat here.

This is all a bit abstract. Frankly, the movie is too long to review as a movie. It consists of the destruction of a conscientious and moral man by the combined brutality of selfish or cowardly individuals and society's merciless exploitation of other humans. It would be simple to say that the movie's hesitations about Marxism are its blind-spot, but in 1959 a Marxist film would have been so "Soviet" as to be worthless in another direction (i.e.-the great Soviet films are much earlier). In short, the panoramic viewpoint of the film contains a jarring number of false notes, which are but poorly reconciled.

Morally, however, the film is supreme. I was frequently moved to tears. Technically, it is a great accomplishment, and the direction and Nakadai's acting are phenomenal. Almost the *only* thing lacking is some unifying penetration into the real state of things, the human condition, which would justify the length of the the film and reconcile its individual portraits.

One's ten hours are "well spent" watching this film. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, and it does not compare favorably with Berlin Alexanderplatz or War & Peace. Perhaps this is why I have heard of those novels, and not the novel on which this film is based.