Red Angel

The bleakest movie I've seen from a director who is usually bleak anyway. Hell, with the first ten minutes already boasting gang-rape and mass amputations, it out-tragedies even Kobayashi's The Human Condition. The highlights are its explorations of dark sexual and moral problems Nishi faces in her contact with wounded soldiers, but otherwise, it's an inferior script. It's basically plight porn, and there's a limit to the moping I'm willing to take from Japan, the aggressor in that war.

I have nothing bad to say; it's harrowing, tragic, and well-made. Nishi has a complex sexuality and she's not merely a figure of exploitation (once again we've got rape in a Japanese movie, but at least it's not being played for kinky kicks). But it didn't move me in any way. I didn't see much point to it. Ichikawa's anti-war messages are stronger, Mizoguchi's work is more elegant, Suzuki is more subversive. Not a bad film, but not a great one, and certainly not as distinctive as Blind B

bu kadar iyi başlamışken melodramla nihayete erdirilmesi büyük bir potansiyeli harcamış.

Sonralara doğru olay örgüsünde yaşanan kırılma filme ciddi anlamda güç kaybettiriyor. Bu haliyle, sert imajlarla dolu bir savaş filmiyle, yapaylığın kıyısında gezinen bir melodramın kolajı gibi.

Bleak and hopeless is how I would describe this movie. The acting was fantastic by all involved, and the direction was reserved and didn't take centerstage. While the two leads and the head nurse were complex the film kept everything at a distance which tempered my reaction to the horrors being portrayed.

This is quite probably the grimmest anti-war film of the 1960's. It's depiction of surgery and amputations (as well as it's depiction of cholera) is grim, explicit and very realistic. It paints a vivid picture of people who's hope and sense of self is utterly annihilated by the sustained carnage.

An exhausting sense of hopelessness pervades. This is rendered both bearable and all the more heart-rending by delicate moments of humanity that shine through in the madness, and by a relationship that grows between a doctor and nurse as they comfort one another using each other to briefly escape the pain all around them.

Impressively unflinching, even if the guiding directorial hand is never quite invisible. Nishi's character is well developed and the while the commentary on war has been done before and since, this at least provides a fresh perspective. Time has dulled a bit of the impact, but not too much.