Mud and Soldiers
During WWII, the Japanese army infiltrates the Chinese mainland, marching through anonymous villages and fighting exhaustion, natural obstacles and the permanent sense of menace that goes hand-in-hand with the absurdity of war.
During WWII, the Japanese army infiltrates the Chinese mainland, marching through anonymous villages and fighting exhaustion, natural obstacles and the permanent sense of menace that goes hand-in-hand with the absurdity of war. Shot in China in 1939 during the second Sino-Japanese War, “Mud and Soldiers” documents real-life battlefields, combining a reality-based approach with an imaginary scenario about a group of soldiers – personal story fragments and small-time heroics in a war without heroes. Through Tomotaka Tasaka’s eyes, people and landscapes merge into one as the repetitive movement of their military routine takes on an almost avant-garde quality. Hypnotic and eerily realistic, “Mud and Soldiers” is not just a seminal war protest, it’s a first-hand documentation of atrocity, where ethics are sacrificed for a futile cause. Th.P.
Original title: Tsuchi to Heitai
Σκηνοθεσία / Director: Tomotaka Tasaka
Σενάριο / Screenwriter: Ryôzô Kasahara
Φωτογραφία / DoP: Saburo Isayama, Tatsuyuki Yokota
Μουσική / Music: Eiso Nakagawa
Ηθοποιοί / Principal Cast: Isamu Kosugi, Izome Shiro, Bontaro Miake
Ιαπωνία / Japan
1939
Ασπρόμαυρο / B&W
119'
Ιαπωνικά / Japanese
* Screened on September 27th and September 30th
