Fires on the Plain Ten Dark Women

Tonight's screening of Fires on the Plain, a truly unsettling war movie, alongside Ten Dark Women, a stylish revenge melodrama, showcases Ichikawa's remarkable range.

"Ichikawa has rarely been given his due as an innovator. He is an artist with an astounding command of many genres, forms, and tones, from ferociously humanist war films to sophisticated social satires."--James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario

A classic of world cinema, Fires on the Plain is a riveting portrait of Japanese soldiers stranded on a Pacific island in the last days of World War II. In her review of the film, tough-as-nails New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael writes that the film "has the disturbing power of great art; it doesn't leave you the same." "Cautious as I am about superlatives," she adds, "I think the term "masterpiece" must be applied." (1959; 105 mins.)

Former MoMA curator and Japanese film authority Donald Ritchie remarks that Ten Dark Women is "both a black comedy about sex and a serious criticism of the relationships between the sexes." It's also one of the major discoveries of the Ichikawa oeuvre: a stylish noir revenge melodrama about a man whose 10 former mistresses band together to get rid of him. Ichikawa has great fun toying with the genre and takes swipes at television and the "new" Japanese male along the way. (1961; 103 mins.)