Some words on this fim
http://movieprojector.blogspot.com/2010/04/no-regrets-for-our-youth-19 46.html
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I think that this review points out noteworthy things, but what really struck me like a baseball bat was the manner in which No Regrets for Our Youthhandles WWII just one year after the war ended. Very, very few Japanese films until this very day really come to grips with the fascist, militarist mindset that took over Japan and inflicted such vast atrocities on the world. This film takes on those forces and lays blame in such a clear, head-on fashion; there is nothing else quite like it in Japanese cinema. Only Fires on the Plain is its equivalent in terms of historical courage and honesty.
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Yes, I have seen the Human Condition trilogy. You're right about the comfort women, and it certainly takes us through a harrowing war experience in a powerful way, but I didn't get the same sense of a film confronting collective responsibility. Maybe that's just my inadequate memory of those films.
There are a lot of Japanese movies that shake their heads at the horrors of war, but most of them engage in historical amnesia and imply that the Japanese were victims rather than perpetrators (see Grave of the Fireflies for a prime example); few movies, as I've said, confront the culture's collective responsibility for the horrors that fascist Japan (and Germany) inflicted upon the world.
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No Regrets for Our Youth isn't meant to be a subtle film. It's a movie that decries in no uncertain terms the fascism that took over the country and culture, and it takes extraordinary courage to do such a thing in any culture -- to introspect and face the ugliness soberly -- and it was nigh on miraculous to do such a thing in Japan, which does not tend to reward nonconformity or cultural/historical introspection. The movie deserves tremendous credit for such a thing, imo, and that was my point. Such films are about moments of truth, and historical moments of truth can have a "which side are you on when it really counts?" effect.
But I was not speaking of artistic merit, because on that front I would agree that The Human Condition is a far more ambitious film. I readily agree with you there.
... But I would suggest, fwiw, that bringing in a contemporary thought-paralyzing term like "PC" greatly hinders rather than helps your argument and gives your would-be point a whiff of the ironic. But of course, I'll assume you don't agree there.
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The irony I was referencing is on full display in your follow-up post, which is nothing but hackneyed, sophomoric pronouncements; naive, simplistic, black-and-white assumptions -- about me and about the purpose of art -- in the name of decrying pre-conceptions no less; and generous self-congratulations for your courage and discriminating ability to repeat dead cultural memes and assume it represents your original thought.
Zzzzz. Seen it a few thousand too many times -- save it for your next Straw-Man crusade against crusades.
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Be sure to swing by your local museum and let them know your strict criteria for what is and what isn't art. I'm sure they'll be grateful to have things so simplified for them. And let them know in advance that you'll be bravely resisting their PC oppression -- maybe they'll give you a button for the day with 'martyr' on it.
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