Hey folks, Harry here... it falls upon me to write this OBIT - because well, I'm the one that loves FIRES ON THE PLAIN. I am not an expert on Kon Ichikawa. I won't pretend that I am, but around 13 years ago, my father and I were driving back from a dinner on the south side of Austin, and decided to check the cheapie bin at the BLOCKBLUSTER VIDEO around the University of Texas campus. You know the drill, you dig through their previously viewed weeding out of titles and you find gold. This was back in the videotape era -

I found a tape called FIRES ON THE PLAIN. The box described the film as being harrowing. One of the most disturbing films regarding the Pacific Campaign during WWII. They mentioned something about the characters being reduced to cannibalism... Well, knowing my Dad's love of the Pacific WWII stories - and our mutual love of all things involving cannibalism... it felt like a good film to watch.

Mind you - I knew this wasn't an exploitive affair - the word HARROWING - isn't something you use to describe much exploitive work. Plus the box showed the distributor as being JANUS FILMS - which in and of itself meant quality. So that night we watched FIRES ON THE PLAIN.

People talk about Anti-War film and claim there's no such thing... for the mere showing of the act of war, glorifies war.

Those people haven't seen FIRES ON THE PLAIN. If I were to use a word besides HARROWING - it would be SOBERING. This is about starving, drinking puddles of water from muddy footprints. It's about growing weaker and weaker - and about doing anything to stay alive.

The film is black & white - and you couldn't imagine color. The photography and design of the film is brilliant. And that is upon Kon Ichikawa. There is no irony here. The film is genius. I'm sad to say, FIRES ON THE PLAIN is the only film of Kon Ichikawa's that I've ever seen - but that one singular glimpse at his work stunned me. I'll leave the summing of his career up to those that dig through his IMDB listing - or that honestly know his overall career. His death served me as a reminder... I'm going to look into his work, try to find a few more titles to watch.