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Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

The Burmese Harp

Directed by Kon Ichikawa, starring Rentaro Mikuni, Shoji Yausui, 1956, Black and White, 116 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles. Available at Hollywood Video, Kensington Video

Matthew: The goal of everybody is to get home. The British want to go home, the Japanese want to go home, "Home Sweet Home" is the song that moves everybody throughout the film. And at one point, even the ancient Burmese fellow talks of someday seeing the Himalayas, as if they were some kind of home other than his native country. What is home?

Ernie: It's almost like Burma is no one's home. As the monk tells Mizushima after he passes the pile of dead Japanese on the beach, "Many foreigners lie unburied on our soil." Many foreigners are there, and none of them find rest. It's a place of toil and suffering.

Matthew: That's why he wants to stay -- to bury their bodies and pray for their souls. He has to take care of them and see them home.

Ernie: I think he finds in the harp his sort of entry, his cue to think, "Maybe there's something other than home in Japan." He wasn't even a musician, and he picked up this native Burmese instrument and became an expert. And when he puts on the native garb, he seems sort of ecstatic about it, like he's found himself in a way.