Harp of Burma

Introduction

A "strangely poetic saga of the transformation of a militaritic
consciousness into one of passionate dedication to humanity." At the end
of World War II, as Japanese military forces pull out of Burma, a popular
Japanese private becomes separated from his comrades. He disguises himself
as a Theravada Buddhist monk to make his ay back to his troop, but as he
travels through the devastated countryside, he becomes spiritually
transformed. An extraordinary film about military action, colonialism,
sadness, guilt, and transformation.

THE BURMESE HARP (BIRUMA NO TATEGOTO)
ICHIKAWA Kon, Japan, 1956

Cast

	Rentaro MIKUNI	...	Captain Inouye
	Shoji YASUI	...	Mizushima
	Jun HAMAMURA	...	Ito
	Taketoshi NAITO	...	Kobayashi (as Takeo Naito)
	Tanie KITABAYASHI	...	the Obaasan/Trader

 

Of the great masters of Japanese cinema, the work of Kon Ichikawa is probably the least well known in the West. His films have never achieved the public or critical attention they deserve and this is likely due to his vision as an auteur. With 75 films and counting, covering an eclectic and daunting range of subjects, it's difficult to get a grip on what is truly at the heart of this overlooked body of work. As the director said himself, "I don't have any unifying theme. I just make any picture I like...." The Burmese Harp is one of Ichikawa's first widely acknowledged films, bolstered by success at The Venice Film Festival. A compassionate, anti-war film (yet refusing to enter into any cinematic discussion of where to lay blame), this is one of the first films to portray the decimating effects of the war from the point of view of the Japanese army.

Through the voice over of one soldier, we're told of the devastation and capture by the British of a Japanese troop in 1945. The battalion's harp player, Mizushima, is sent on a liaison mission to persuade another troop into surrender from a mountain in Burma. But Mizushima fails and after encountering the full carnage of war, bodies of his fellow countrymen piled high and left to rot, he refuses to return to his troop. Appropriating the Buddhist ethos, Mizushima devotes himself to burying each of his comrades, sparing them the ignominy suffered in wartime with the dignity of a humane burial. Dramatic overhead shots of a solitary figure, the quest of one man's journey to find an inner sanctum, lilting melodies extending emotion where words seem futile, this is truly a magnificent epic on every level.

Clare Norton-Smith

from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/burmese-harp.shtml

 

From the opening epigraph of the novel:

Our Japanese soldiers who came back from overseas were a pitiful sight. They looked thin,
weak, and exhausted. And some of them were invalids, drained of colour and borne on
stretchers.

But among the returning soldiers was one company of cheerful men. They were always
singing, even difficult pieces in several parts, and they sang very well. When they disembarked
at Yokosuka the people who came to greet them were astonished. Everyone asked if they had
received extra rations, since they seemed so happy.

These men had no extra rations, but had practiced choral singing throughout the Burma
campaign. Their captain, a young musician fresh from music school, had enthusiastically
taught his soldiers how to sing. It was singing that kept up their morale through the boredom
or hardship, and that bound them together in friendship during the long war years. Without it,
they would never have come home in remarkably high spirits.
One of these soldiers told me the following tale... (p. 11).

 

The film opens differently:

There is a shot of the Burmese Landscape as emblazoned across the screen are the words:

 

The Soil of Burma is Red

ビルマの土は　あかい

And so are its Rocks

岩もまた　あかい

The language is simple, poetic. The landscape in the background appears harsh, the words are gentle and soothing...though one could project that blood has soaked this country's landscape.

It is July 1945 and even here in Burma, tide has turned against Japan. The company--the Singing Company--is fleeling from mountain to mountain hoping eventually to cross the border into Thailand.

Pfc. Mizushima, a beloved member of the "singing Company," has learned to play the Burmese Harp and this gentle young man seems to be the most acculturated man in his outfit. That is, he displays an interest in and a degree of comfort with Burmese customs and culture. He even speaks a little of the language. He can assume the "Burmese Body," bowing gracefully in his longyi, while uttering a greeting in Burmese, and then suddently stand rigidly at attention, resuming his martial "Japanese Body."

His compatriots always joke that he should stay behind after the war because he seems to feel so at home in Burma. Mizushima has a special place in the hearts of his comrades, and also a special role to play in the company. He functions as a scout by dressing like a Burmese native and walking ahead of his unit into the forests with his harp. If there is no danger, he plays a pre-selected melody on the harp to sound the "all clear."

Just when the company thinks it is about to be engaged by the enemy (Great Britain), they learn that the war has actually been over for three days. Japan has surrendered. So does his company, basically without incident. Nevertheless, it is difficult to process what has occurred.

The Captain addresses his men:

In the Film he says:

We have surrendered. Not just us but our Country as well. I don't even know what to think about it. We don't know where we'll be taken, or even if we'll be allowed to live.

All of Japan has been heavily bombed. Many are dead. Many are homeless and starving.

Our country is in ruins while we'ere imprisoned thousands of miles away.

All we can do is watch and wait. It's no use fighting our fate. Far better to accept it like men and wait for the day when we can rise again as a nation.

Up until now, we have lived and died together. Now we must share this fate together, too.

If we die here in Burma, we'll die together.

But if by chance we're able to return home, we'll do so together, leaving no man behind.

We'll rebuild our country.

That's all I can say for now. [Sounds of the men sobbing.]

 

From the Novel the Captain says:

In time, I suppose the shock will give way to sorrow. We'll probably feel despair, and doubt, even anger and bitterness. . .

All we can do now is wait to see what the future brings. . .[T]he manly thing to do is to recognize clearly how we stand, accept our lot, and make the best of it. Let's at least have the courage to do that much....All we have left is our faith in each other. That's the only thing we can count on. It's all we have.

So let's go on sharing our sorrows and our pain. Let us help each other...

And if the day ever comes when we can go back to Japan, let us go back together--every man of us--and work together to rebuild our country. (32-33)

***

This becomes the pledge that the company members make to one another. It seems like this is the pragmatic, the practical outlook to embrace.

But there is another company nearby, dug into a mountainside, that manifests the hardline, "imperial way," never-say-die mentality. They refuse to believe Japan would ever surrender, so they refuse to give up. Committed to fulfilling their "duty," unwilling to "insult" the memory of comrades who have already died for the cause, they are, literally, the "die hards."

As Mizushima recounts in the novel,

As I listened I felt that these raging men were controlled by a strange force....Having incited one another with a false show of courage, they could no longer back down.

Perhaps he is thinking that they are gripped by the same kind of paralysis that Ian Buruma noted about the high-level conferences that tried to arrive at the decision to go to war--or not. Those who knew it was folly (the Navy) were not able to speak thier minds.

Mizushima exhorts them to "Live, endure, work for your country!"

"How dare you?" retorts one.

"How does surrendering help our Country? No one here wants to live with that humiliation!"

"As long as nobody surrenders, how can Japan lose?" asks another.

"A coward like you cannot be Japanese," says the Captain. "Leave!" Mizushima refuses.

They taunt him. "You'll die if you stay. Aren't you afraid?"

"I don't want to die meaninglessly" is Mizushima's answer.

They guffaw. "Dying in battle is meaningless?" They are incredulous.

"It doesn't serve Japan or its people or yourself. It's meaningless" reiterates Mizushima.

This only enrages the die-hards further. These soldiers seem to believe that to surrender would mean complete humiliation. It would dishonor those comrades who have already fallen in battle. They wish to fight to the death. They epitomize the logic of the fanatical adherents to the emperor system. Mizushima is supposed to persuade the hold outs to give up but it is a hopeless task.

As we saw above, Mizushima's ideal--and the ideal of his company--is to return to Japan and help rebuild the country. That is his company's and his captain's interpretation of how to appropriately perform their patriotic duty. They are against wasting lives senselessly. Japan needs their lives and their energy in order to rebuild. That is why Mizushima's company pledges to all return to Japan together as a unit as their way of accomplishing this ideal.

But the die-hards ridicule him; they reject his pleas and scoff at him.

"Unlike your unit, we are not filthy cowards. We will fight to the death."

They call Mizushima a coward and say that a coward like him could not be a real Japanese.

In the novel he says,

"What good will it do to be wiped out? We've got to live. We've got to live and struggle and work, for the sake of our country." (99)

In the film, he tries to counter the logic of the die-hards by saying something like

"What good are you then? Live, endure, work for your country. Dying does not serve Japan."

He tells the captain, these men are his responsibility:

"Who will apologize to their families and to the people of Japan?"

Yet they come right back to him with

"How does surrendering help Japan? No one here wants to live with that humiliation. As long as nobody surrenders, how can Japan lose?"

But Mizushima persists saying he is not afraid to die but he does not want to die when it is clearly pointless. "I don't want to die meaninglessly," he says, what purpose would it serve? "It doesn't serve Japan, or its people, or yourself."

Of course, the fanatics retort with a sneer and a question: To die in battle would be meaningless, you say? Ridiculous! If no Japanese surrendered, the war would never be over!!

But, in the end, Mizushima stays with the fanatics, while the captain queries the unit. Of course, not a single soldier is willing to say that surrender would be a reasonable and sensible thing.

Meanwhile, time is slipping away until finally the 30-minuted ultimatum expires and the British attack begins. Mizushima is rendered unconscious by an exploding mortar and later is shot as well. He wakes up some time later amidst a sea of corpses. A Burmese Buddhist priest takes care of him, nursing his wounds and feeding him (which is different from the novel where the people nursing him were cannibals and were planning to make a meal out of him!). The priest tries to tell him that he is in the land of the Buddha and it is not necessary for him to do anything, but Mizushima's aim is to return to Mudon where his company is being detained.

As a consequence, he steals the priest's robes while he is bathing and sets out on his journey dressed as priest; it is his disguise. It is kind of a despicable act to steal from this priest who cared for him. But, at this point, his mission is still his top priority: get back to his company, return to and rebuild Japan. He shaves his head but he is still not very priest-like. Burmese people who respect priests immensely, stop him and offer him food even though they have very little for themselves. They are expressing their reverence for him. Meanwhile, he continues to care for the war dead. He burns or buries their corpses in order to do something for his fallen comrades.

There is in an important sequence in which Mizushima stops by a dead soldier to pick up a photo of the man with a child, and he realizes that each of the numerous bodies he encounters everyday is an individual person whose death affects other people. He can comprehend no reason for the death of the Japanese soldiers but he does the only thing he can do: he offers them the respect they deserve by burying the bodies--what else is there to do?

Mizushima realizes and states clearly at the end of the film that we may never be able to understand why suffering exists in this world, but we must nevertheless try to ease the pain it inflicts. Having witnessed day in and day out the tragic waste of life that the ravages of war inflict on humans, Mizushima begins to adopt a genuinely spiritual perspective. With the passage of time, he is actually becoming one with his role as the priest, he is taking Buddhist teachings seriously even though the role of the priest was one that he originally assumed as a disguise. He was a soldier but now he is gradually becoming a real Buddhist priest.

Meanwhile, the company worries about him and wonders where he is. Occasionally they catch sight of this priest who "resembles" Mizushima, but he says nothing to them. Another time, they hear him play the harp as only he can. They begin to believe that the priest is Mizushima. One day, in a procession to honor the war dead, they spot the priest carrying the same kind of wooden box that is typically used for ashes in Japan. Later, when the Captain is taken to the repository for the war dead, he sees the box that Mizushima has placed there and it confirms for him the priest's identity.

Actually, while the Captain is in the morturary, Mizushima is there too, and hears him speak aloud about his understanding of what Mizushima is doing. Mizushima weeps as he resists the impulse to reveal himself to the Captain and rejoin his company. The time is drawing near for the company's repatriation to Japan and the company desperately wants Mizushima to make the return voyage with them, to make good on their pledge that all shall return together and rebuild Japan.

When I first saw this film more than 40 years ago, it was part of a PBS Japanese Film Series introduced by Edwin Reischauer. His commentary was that the hardest thing for a Japanese person to do is to make the decision to leave the group, to set aside one's identity as a Japanese person, for something else. As the text says, "Even so, Japanese long to be with other Japanese." (67) During the war, all Japanese people could do was succumb to or immerse in their identity as Japanese Imperial Subjects, and do what their superiors told them. What will Mizushima do?

His fellow soldiers train a parrot to say in Japanese "Hey, Mizuhima! LET'S GO BACK TO JAPAN TOGETHER." They give the parrot to the old woman who comes around to trade food for knicknacks with the Japanese. She speaks a funny style of "pidgin" Osaka dialect Japanese; this endears her to the soldiers.

Soon, Mizushima shows up outside the barbed wire fence where the soldiers are detained with two parrots on his shoulder. They sing to him--still unsure if he is Mizushima--and he responds with a melody on the harp. They know it is him and they rejoice. But Mizushima utters no words to them. The song he has played is a familiar one; it is the

It is the song that students sing to their teachers at graduation. The refrain, which Mizushima repeats on the harp says "Now we must part, now we must part" (p. 88) [or, more fully, "And now it is time to say farewell with an eternally grateful heart"]. When he just bows, turns around, and departs without uttering a word, he has made his statement, loud and clear. He must bid his comrades farewell. If the message wasn't already clear enough, the young boy who accompanies him gives the men one of the two parrots on Mizushima's shoulder.

The parrot carries the message: "I CANNOT RETURN TO JAPAN WITH YOU."

As the critic cited below in the next excerpt notes, one can view the image of Mizushima as he appears near the end of the film, in his priestly robes, on the occasion of his the last appearance before his comrades at the camp, as "Christ like."

The point is, I think, that he was sacrificing something--his own happiness? parting from his comrades? his sense of belonging to his group?--for a "higher" calling. What was that higher calling?

Some time later, a letter is delivered but the Captain waits until the ship has set sail to read it to his men, for he has figured out that Mizushima must remain behind in Burma to fulfill his role as Buddhist Priest, as the one who cares for the remains and the souls of the Japanese war dead.

As Mizushima says in the novel in his letter:

. . .[M]y choice was clear. The bones of the countless unknown dead are calling me. They are waiting for me. I cannot ignore them. . .

I want to study Buddhist teachings, reflect on them and make them part of me. We and our fellow countrymen have suffered cruelly. Many innocent people were sacrificed to a senseless cause. Fresh, clean young men were taken from their homes, jobs, and schools, only to leave their bones bleaching on the soil of a distant land. The more I think of it, the bitterer my sorrow. As I look back at what has happened, I feel keenly that we have been too unthinking. We have forgotten to meditate deeply on the meaning of life. (129)

We Japanese have not cared to make strenuous spiritual efforts. We have not even recognized their value. What we stressed was a man's abilities, the things he could do—not what kind of man he was, how he lived, or the depth of his understanding.  Of perfection as a human being, of humility, stoicism, holiness, the capacity to gain salvation and to help others toward it—of all these virtues we were left ignorant.  

I hope to spend the rest of my life seeking them as a monk in this foreign land. (129)

As I climbed mountains and forded rivers, and buried the bodies I found lying smothered in weeds or soaked in water, I was harassed by tormenting questions.  Why does so much misery exist in the world? Why is there so much inexplicable suffering?  What are we to think?  But I have learned that these questions can never be solved by human thought.  We must work to bring what little relief we can to this pain-ridden world. We must be brave.  No matter what suffering, what unreasonableness, what absurdity we face, we must remain undaunted and show strength of character by meeting it with tranquility.  It is my hope to realize this conviction by devoting myself to a religious life….(129-130) 

Our country has waged a war and lost it and is now suffering.   That is because we were greedy, because we were so arrogant that we forgot human values because we had only a superficial ideal of civilization.  Of course, we cannot be as languid as the people of this country, and dream our lives away as they often do.  But can we not remain energetic and yet be less avaricious?  Is that not essential—for the Japanese and for all humanity? How can we truly be saved?  And how can we help to save others?  I want to think this through carefully.  I want to learn.  That is why I want to live in this country, to work and serve in it.  (130)

********************

 

Loftus Comments:

Whenever I read that line about Mizushima wanting to learn, wanting to live in another culture and learn about their beliefs and their way of life, I can't help but think about how ths is what we do here at this university and in this classroom. We try to reflect on what goes on in other places and other times and apply it to our own present time and circumstances so we can better understand whatis going on around us.

I also love the fact that as part of his disguise, Mizushima put on an armband that was the mark of a monk of high status, a master. But later on, when he took vows, he actually received another one, one that he had earned, which he originally had not.  His training was his direct experience and he served others with humility and devotion. The Burmese saw that about him. Remember the one monk showing him to his room told him that he looked like he had been undergoing some very severe training?

Mikuni Rentarô, the actor who plays the Captain, delivers a triumphal performance as he reads the letter from Mizushima aloud, his voice is full of emotion, nearly breaking on several occasions. It is one of the most moving scenes in modern film. In an interview for the Criterion edition of the DVD, Mikuni made it clear that the antiwar message of the film was Kon Ichikawa's vision all the way, both his and his scriptwriter wife, Natto Wada's. Mikuni pointed out that those two carefully watched the rushes every day figured out which scenes had to be reshot. According to Ichikawa Kon, the Harp of Burma is a film of hope.

Questions:

But some may argue, reasonably, that the film is devoid of something important. It does not really extend to an apology for all the suffering Japan caused to the people of Southeast Asia and China. Joan Mellen is just one among many critics who refer to the Harp of Burma as "a sentimental if often beautiful whitewash of the Japanese presence in Southeast Asia." (Mellen 190). At times, it seems as though the film is all about the Japanese who suffered; but what about the other victims? Where are the bodies of the non-Japanese combatants and even civilians, the people against whom Japanese soldiers carried out atrocities, whose lands and farms were burned and looted?

No atrocities are visible in this film because this is "the singing company" of soldiers, men who are seemingly decent human beings who did not want to be there themselves...but once there, they always seemed to be respectful of other people and their beliefs. In reality, this was not always the case. This complaint remains vocal today when it comes to the questions of the Nanjing Massacre and the Comfort Women, or Unit 731, not to mention the larger matter of issuing an apology for the war. Critics see that Japan is all too willing to see itself as a victim while remaining unwilling to accept the fact that the nation and its policies was directly responsible for a tremendous amount of violence and suffering. Where do you think this novel and film fall on a continuum that may measure how deeply a society or culture has engaged in self-reflection?

It is certainly seems unfair to ask that each and every novel or film present all sides of the argument in order to be effective. It is the same as claiming that you cannot explore the atomic bombings without also talking about Pearl Harbor.

What I think that this text and the film do accomplish is at least the following five things:

1) they strongly and clearly acknowledge that the war was senseless and wrong;

2) that it was rooted in a greed and arrogance which stemmed from the superficial way in which Japan embraced modern civilization (bunmei, 文明). [Remember, Taoka Reiun had similar reservations, too!])

3) on this point, they suggest Japan's grasp of civilization (bunmei, 文明) was too shallow and superficial, as though it could be reduced down to the simple slogan, fukoku kyôhei (Rich Country, Strong Military). This little phrase incorporated a commitment to having an industrial revolution so that Japan could build a modern military force. But in Takeyama's estimation, Japan embraced aspects of western technological superiority without paying sufficient heed to their own moral and spiritual development;

4) also, the novel/film portray a clear alternative to the martial stance or the "die-hard," fanatical spirit that propelled the Japanese to invade other Asian nations. The New Order in Asia, and the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, claimed a certain moral and spiritual high ground, but really, they lacked these qualities; certainly they were not spiritual not in the sense that Mizushima was.

Also, the novel especially, conducts a discourse about the differences between Burmese and Japanese societies, how the one remains tranquil, underdeveloped but religious and close to nature, while the other, Japan, embraces a strong work ethic, a drive for material growth and success in the modern world, but lacks a balanced view of human being's place in the universe. In a word, this meant a reckless quest for power and control, including control over nature. [Such a distorted view of nature is something Tanaka Shôzô had certainly noticed as well.]

5) finally, let us not forget that Mizushima is a deserter.  This is pretty serious business.  It is typically a crime for which a soldier can be executed! But it definitely means that Mizushima is turning his back upon his country, rejecting whole idea of the nation-state, the military, and the values it represents. Doesn't this constitute a thorough going assault on the whole prewar ideological construct of the state, the empire and the tennôsei itself? How else could we read this? Mizushima has cast off his uniform, donned priestly robes, and even formally joined the Buddhist priesthood.  He's no longer a soldier and arguably, no longer an imperial subject on Japan. After all, he wrote in his letter, "after I became a real Burmese monk, the man known as Corporal Mizushima no longer existed." (125) So his identitity as a loyal imperial subject has been erased. I don't think we can lose sight of the enormity of this fact.

When Takeyama writes in the novel about how the soldiers recall the painful memories of leaving Japan with cheers ringing in their ears, feeling like "drunken bullies," isn't this also a way of taking a position about the nature of Japan's conduct in the 1930s?

The contrast between Japan and Burma is clearly drawn: In Japan young men don military uniforms; in Burma, they put on priestly robes that are meant for a life of quiet worship and contemplation, not not brutal acts war, pillage and violence. The Burmese have remained unchanged, he suggests: "Instead of wishing to master everything through strength or intellect, they aim for salvation through humility and reliance on a power greater than themselves…When people get conceited and try to impose their will on everything, they’re lost.  The Burmese never seem to have committed our stupid blunder of attacking others." (Takeyama, pp. 47-48)

Once again, the author is fairly clear here:

Japan blundered stupidly by invading other countries. Japan was guilty of being arrogant, greedy, and conceited, trying to master everything, exerting its strength and power, trying to impose their will on nature and on other human beings--this is the path that Japan chose and it had disastrous consequences for themsleves and others. If this type of language does not constitute an apology, it does own up to the reality what Japan did and it rejects it, calling it arrogant and stupid. When thre narrator comments about the discussions that the men in the company have, he observes that:

Our argument tended to boil down to this: it depends on how people choose to live--to try to control nature by their own efforts, or yield to it and merge into a broader, deeper order of being. But which of these attitudes, of these ways of life, is better for the world and for humanity? Which should we choose? (47).

In the eyes of some, the Burmese are just a "weak, lazy people...They ought to modernize, take off their longyi and put on pants." But, then, some counter this opinion by saying that this may not bring happiness. "Look at Japan...And not only Japan--the whole world is in a mess. When people get conceited and try to Impose their will on everything, they're lost. Even if they have a few succeses, it's worse in the long run." (47)

So there may be some short term advantages, but over the long haul, this kind of presence in the world will only bring about harm. The narrative does not stop there, however. It compares the degree of civilization attained by Japan v. Burma and one soldier observes that "Sometimes I think we are not as civilized as they are...We have the tools for civilization, but at heart we're still savages who don't know how to use them. What did we do with these tools but wage a gigantic war, and even come all thre way here to invade Burma and cause terrible suffering to its people." (48)

This may not be an apology per se, but it is clearly an admission not only that Japan has behaved badly but it has caused suffering to Southeast Asian people, particularly the Burmese. The Burmese have something going for themselves: they live at peace with serene hearts, embracing the teachings of Buddhism. By implication, this critique suggests that Japanese might do better to live their lives more like the Burmese.

And then, toward the end of the text, in Mizushima's letter to his comrades, we find this comment:

Our country waged a war...because we were greedy, because we were so arrogant that we forgot human values, because we had only a superficial ideal of civilization (bunmei, 文明)...can we not remain energetic and yet be less avaricious?  Is that not essential--for the Japanese and for all humanity? (130)

Here again, the text is pretty unequivocal: all the much heralded progress Japan made as a modern nation-state, its great achievement of bunmei-kaika, its rapid industrialization, was really, as Taoka Reiun suggested in the early 1900s, very shallow and superficial. There has to be some middle ground here: Japan can remain dynamic and successful without being militarily aggressive and so intent on invading other countries and acquiring territory outside its own borders. This, Mizushima feels, is essential for both Japan and humanity.

Perhaps we should also allow for the fact that in 1946, not a great deal was known about what, if any, atrocities Japanese military may have committed in Burma. There is one known case--the Kalagong Massacre--that was committed not by ordinary troops like Mizushima's company, but by the Kempeitai, the brutal and dreaded Japanese military police.

THE MONTAGE:

A powerful moment occurs about an hour and five minutes into the film, after Mizushima witnesses the foreign priest and nuns singing a hymm over the grave of a Japnese soldier. Mizushima cannot help but feel that if these people from a different religious heritage can take of our dead, shouldn't we be able to do something ourselves? He rushes back to his little room and falls upon his knees. A montage follows of all the scenes of carnage, of all the Japanese corpses strewn throughout the Burmese landscape. This is something Mizushima cannot erase from his mind; nor can he enduretrying to live with it. He cannot sit idly by, living with this horror, and do nothng. He must act, he must do something. And now he knows what he must do.

At the very least, this text and this film ask us to think about something very fundamental about the choices Japan made over the previous half-century, and have framed the discourse in a very humanistic context which, in itself, is in stark contrast to fanaticism and inhumanity associated with the war. The director has arranged his shots carefully, often placing Mizushima alone against the empty spaces of the otherwise beautiful landscapes of Burma. These shots remind us that, in the end, Mizushima is an individual, a single Japanese who might make a difference by trying to do some good, by trying to do the right thing. This is in contrast to his comrades in the company, who always appear in a group, usually behind barbed-wire fences, but often running hither and yon, sometimes right in front of Burmese who are praying at Buddhist temples.

At the film's conclusion, as the unit sails back to Japan, the sea around them is vast, open, peaceful and beautiful. It is a moment of high emotion as the captain reads Mizushima's letter aloud explaining why he couldn't return with them. The camera turns toward the expansive, empty ocean, allowing the poignancy of Mizushima's words to penetrate our hearts while echoing in the vastness of the sea air.

The final shot is a cut to Mizushima traversing the spiritual path through the Burmese plains that he has elected to follow. As one critic puts it, by choosing to "transcend rather than return," The Harp of Burma, he goes on to say, "is a film which, even while dealing with war and all its senseless tragedy, refuses to cheapen life and maintains the importance of death."

Some critics see the film as more powerful and effective than the original novel. In 2007, film critic Tony Rayns called the Harp of Burma the "first real landmark in Ichikawa Kon's career" and writes:

Ichikawa's film is sharper and more clearheaded than Takeyama's book, perhaps because it reflects an encounter with the reality of Burma and the Burmese. Most details in the film are taken directly from the book, although the overall structure has been changed....It's with the dropping of one of the book's episodes entirely and substituting ideas of his own that Ichikawa provides the measure of the film's achievement. After Mizushima is sent on the futile mission to persuade a belligerent captain to surrender, he's wounded in the leg by a British bullet and left to die....In the book, Mizushima is found and nursed back to health by a non-Burmese tribe of cannibals, who plan to eat him; ... Ichikawa instead has Mizushima brought back from near death by a Buddhist monk, who intones over his patient the line "Burma is Burma. Burma is the Buddha's country." After his recovery, Mizushima shamelessly steals the monk's robe (his only thought is self-preservation, and he needs a disguise) and makes his way south, intending to rejoin his company [and fulfill his promise to his Captain], which is where Ichikawa's story line rejoins Takeyama's. (11)

On the topic of Buddhism in the novel, The Harp of Burma, there is this assessment relating to the language in Mizushima's letter:

Why does so much misery exist in the world? Why is there so much inexplicable suffering? What are we to think?" (Takeyama 129-130).

The questions raised in Mizushima's mind about suffering are questions central to the Buddhist faith, which seeks to bring enlightenment through the elimination of suffering by curbing the power of desires which inherently give rise to human suffering. The quest for the answers to these questions, however unanswerable, is what leads Mizushima to make the choice to stay in Burma.

As he continues to write in his letter,

We must work to bring what little relief we can to this pain-ridden world. We must be brave. No matter what suffering, what unreasonableness, what absurdity we face, we must remain undaunted and show strength of character by meeting it with tranquility. It is my hope to realize this conviction by devoting myself to a religious life.

Furthermore, I never cease to marvel that the people of Burma, though certainly indolent, pleasure-seeking and careless, are all cheerful, modest, and happy. They are always smiling. Free from greed, they are at peacewith thmeselves. While living among them, I have come to believe that these are precious human qualities. (Takeyama 130)

These qualities are precious and their opposites--all the greed, avarice, the quest for power and the urge to dominate others--are not. Isn't the balance that this novel and film aim to strike close to what we would want to see in a country wrestling with its past?

I might note that very few American novels or films engage in much soul-searching over atrocities during the Vietnam War like the My Lai Massacre and many others. So what should our expectations be?

Mizushima's idea of turning away from a life of self-interested behavior, from the greed and avarice that modern life seems to stimulate, and embracing instead the religious life represents a substantial step for Mizushima. It is the path that he has has chosen. The fact that he has made this choice suggests that he has looked within himself and discovered an altered consciouness, and from actnthis arises his subjectivity, his agency. It becomes his way to undertake penance. maybe some degree of repentance for himself, his comrades, and for all Japanese.

It may not be the final word on Japan's past, on its wartime conduct; it may not address everything Japan has done. But it is a place to begin.

Originally from:

http://suite101.com/a/michio-takeyamas-harp-of-burma-a51888

; The article no longer seems to be there but at

http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms2.html

we can find a brief reference to the film.

See also the comments found in this

Reflections

link (also on the Syllabus)

********************

Audie Bock has a classic review of the film, Harp of Burma:

In beautifully composed black-and-white, lilting easily from sweeping landscape to emotional close-up, and tempered by a gentle and nostalgic choral score, director Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp probes deeply into the moral chaos of war. Following the actions of a young Japanese officer separated from his battalion at the close of the Pacific War in Burma, Ichikawa shows one man's journey from the comforts of companionship in adversity to a solitary confrontation with, and eventual grasp of, mass death in the name of patriotism. Corporal Mizushima's silent conversion from warrior to Buddhist monk, and his final refusal to return home to the country that sent him into war, bear a message of pacifism as inspiring and baffling in our own time as it was to his defeated countrymen in 1945.

In The Burmese Harp, Ichikawa (The Makioka Sisters, Tokyo Olympiad, Odd Obsession) displays some of the versatility that continues to mark him as one of Japan's leading film directors. Not only has he made animated features, working-class comedies, sports documentaries, and adaptations of the rich novels of one of the most twisted erotic sensibilities in modern Japanese literature (Junichiro Tanizaki wrote both The Makioka Sisters and The Key, which is the basis for Ichikawa's Odd Obsession), but with The Burmese Harp he has made a simple story of universal humanistic appeal. Based on Michio Takeyama's novel Harp of Burma, it won the prestigious Venice International Film Festival San Giorgio Prize in 1956. It is one of a handful of Japanese films -- such as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) and Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953) -- that were the first to call the attention of the world to the mastery of cinematic art in Japan. Like Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), it shows one man unwittingly embarking on a spiritual quest that culminates in service to humanity.

At the close of the Pacific War, a weary unit of Japanese soldiers straggles cautiously through mountain jungles in Burma. One of them, Corporal Mizushima (Shoji Yasui), has learned to play the Burmese harp, which he uses with enthralling virtuosity to accompany the men as they keep up their spirits by singing. When Mizushima's unit is ambushed by the British, they learn that the war is over and surrender peacefully, but Mizushima is sent to convince a holdout unit of Japanese in the mountains to give up. He begs them to remember the families who wait for their return, but they decide to die for their country, while accusing him of cowardice. Knocked unconscious in the final massacre, he awakes in a different world, rescued by a Buddhist monk.

From the moment Mizushima steals the monk's robes to rejoin his unit, an inexorable transformation takes place in him -- triggered by the terrible aftermath of battle.

It is this very carnage that brings about his comprehension and embrace of Buddhist altruism. By the time Mizushima's comrades find him -- in a chance encounter on a bridge which so powerfully underscores his newly transcendent identity that it is echoed later in the film -- he has already decided not to go home with them.

Toward the end, the tale turns on the contrast between Mizushima's spiritual journey and his captain's frustrated but relentless search for him from within a POW camp.

Screenwriter Natto Wada (Ichikawa's former wife) lets minimal dialogue carry the emotion of The Burmese Harp. Ichikawa allows the grandeur of the Burmese landscape and the eerie power of its Buddhist statuary and architecture to sustain the mood of Mizushima's conversion and the mystification of his Japanese comrades. Yet the gravity of the film lifts with the lyrical score, the light humor of a local bartering woman (Tanie Kitabayashi) with her parrots, and the genuine but uncomprehending affection of the soldiers for their missing mate.

Part of the mastery of The Burmese Harp lies in the subtlety of its anti-war message. Mizushima never condemns Japanese military policy for the fanatical suicide stand of an entire unit, but his decision not to return to Japan after the war is his personal attempt at redress. If the warring nations treat soldiers as mere cannon fodder, he and the Burmese peasantry would mitigate that inhumanity by cremating and burying the casualties. Inside the box for the ashes of the dead, he places a huge rough ruby plucked from the river mud. Only when the captain (Rentaro Mikuni) observes the familiar monk who carries a Japanese-style funerary box in the ceremony honoring the war dead, and later learns the contents of the box, does he understand Mizushima -- he has forsaken both national identity and an opportunity for worldly wealth to show respect for those who sacrificed their lives. Accepting this, the captain too can relinquish a primary Japanese need for belonging to the group, and allow one of his men to disappear into a strange land to serve a higher spiritual purpose.
-- Audie Bock

CREDITS
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Producer: Masayuki Takaki
Original Story: Michio Takeyama
Screenplay: Natto Wada
Photography: Minoru Yokoyama
Editor: Masanori Tsujii
Lighting: Ko Fujibayashi
Music: Akira Ifukube

Here is part of another review from filmcritic.com:

The meaninglessness and waste of war is illustrated with heartrending precision in Kon Ichikawa's masterful Burmese Harp, a moving tale that takes place in the final days of World War II, when everyone involved takes a moment to look around at the carnage and see what they've done. In the sweaty jungles of Burma, a small Japanese unit led by Captain Inoyue (Rentaro Mikuni) is marching toward nothing in particular. Hungry and exhausted, they just hope to make it back to Japan alive. To keep his troops' spirits up, Inoyue, a choirmaster in civilian life, has the men sing constantly, and they sound pretty good, especially when they're accompanied by the soldier Mizushima (Shoji Yasui), who has taught himself how to play an elegant little Burmese harp. When the war is finally over, the victorious British ask Inoyue to send one man to tell a group of Japanese holdouts who are still shooting out of a mountainside cave to give up the fight. Mizushima goes on the mission, but with only 30 minutes to make his case to the crazed soldiers, all of whom would rather die for the Emperor than face the shame of defeat, he fails at his task, and a slaughter ensues. Mizushima is presumed dead, and the rest of his unit marches sadly to a Burmese prison camp....

We watch in flashback as Mizushima staggers alone through the jungle in search of his friends and comes across many scenes of gruesome carnage. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers' corpses are rotting in piles and being devoured by vultures. After watching a British medical team bury the body of an unknown Japanese soldier with grace and dignity, Mizushima realizes his mission in life will be to bury each of his dead comrades, a gruesome task that he begins immediately.

Mizushima's colleagues try everything they can to persuade him to rejoin them, even delivering to him a talking parrot that they teach to say 'Hey, Mizushima, let's go back to Japan together.' In the film's most amazing moments, he stands outside the prison fence silently appearing nothing short of Christ-like as he plays his harp along with the singing of his mystified and tearful friends.

Ichikawa is a master of black and white cinematography, and the film is an absolutely gorgeous study of light and shadow. With plenty of chances to push emotional buttons, he bravely holds back and uses understatement to deliver the hardest emotional blows. Mizushima is an unforgettable character, a man of few words who says no to the violence of the world and yes to enlightenment without ever saying very much at all. He lets his harp do the talking.

http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1956/the-burmese-harp/

And another:

THE BURMESE HARP (1956)
D: Kon Ichikawa; with Rentaro Mikuni, Shoji Yasui, Jun
Hamamura, Taketoshi Naito, Akira Nishimura.

History, they say, is written by the victors, so it can be enlightening to revisit it through the eyes of the vanquished. Sometimes translated as Harp of Burma, this affecting drama paints the devastating aftermath of war with a Japanese brush. It's 1943 and the war is going badly (for them), so troops trekking through Burma sing to preserve morale, one of them playing a Burmese harp he picked up along the way. The scene in which the Japanese find out the war is over, toward the beginning of the film, is one of the most powerful in the history of war movies: The resting soldiers spot British forces hiding in the bushes and carry on singing "Home Sweet Home" in Japanese (to fool the Brits into thinking they suspect nothing), only to find the surrounding soldiers singing along in English.

Japan has surrendered. But that's just the beginning of the company's trials. As they linger in a British prison camp, waiting to be sent home, harpist Mizushima (Yasui) volunteers to try to persuade a still-fighting unit holed up in a cave to surrender. It's a mission that takes him much farther than anticipated -- presumed dead, disguised as a monk, wandering through fields strewn with the bodies of the slain, unable to return to his comrades or his former self until he somehow brings peace to the countless dead of war.

**************************************

 

Also:

Kon Ichikawa’s deeply humane, spiritually resonant masterpiece The Burmese Harp is routinely but reductionistically described as “pacifist” or “anti-war,” terms also applied to his subsequent

Fires on the Plain

. The description is apt in the case of the horrific Fires on the Plain, but in The Burmese Harp war is the occasion for the central theme, not the theme itself, which is nothing less than the intractable mystery of suffering and evil, affirmation of spiritual values, and the challenge to live humanely in evil circumstances.

Both films were based on postwar Japanese novels, and made within ten to fifteen years of the end of the Pacific war. Both depict weary Japanese troops struggling in the backwash of a war already lost, though that loss is not yet declared in Fires on the Plain, and not fully acknowledged in The Burmese Harp.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Michio Takeyama, The Burmese Harp’s simple, almost fable-like narrative follows a division of exhausted Japanese soldiers stationed in Burma, who struggle to keep their spirits and humanity alive by singing — not just simple choruses but complex harmonies. The universality of the soldiers’ melancholy circumstances and simple longing is emphasized by the one tune to which they return again and again, Hanyu no Yado or “There’s No Place Like Home.”

Contrasted with this simple nostalgia is the harder wisdom of the proverb “You can’t go home again,” a lesson learned by one of the soldiers, a talented harpist named Mizushima (Shôji Yasui) who undergoes a spiritual transformation after being separated from his unit and disguising himself as a Buddhist monk. Burying the dead, one of the seven corporal works of mercy in Catholic tradition, plays a key role in an elegant parable of reparation and individual conscience.

Although the story dwells on war-related horrors, above all the countless unburied bodies of the slain, The Burmese Harp’s message is not simply that war causes suffering. Nor, despite its Buddhist milieu, does the film endorse the Buddhist doctrine that suffering (dukkha) is caused by desire (tanha).

Instead, the film declares, like the Book of Job, that we mortals do not know why suffering happens. Rather than diagnosing a cause, The Burmese Harp emphasizes the importance of compassion, humility, and spirituality in facing up to the disease.

 

The controversy over Japan's war responsiblity continues right down to the present. For example, on August 15, 2002, Prime Minister Koizumi made official remarks at a ceremony commemorating the 57th anniversary of the end of the war. As an online news account relates his remarks.:

"Representing the people of Japan, I once again express deep remorse and offer sincere condolences to the victims (of the war)," Koizumi said in a speech at the annual government-sponsored ceremony at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan hall.

The premier said Japan caused great damage and pain to people in many countries, especially Asian nations. He said he believes "passing on a peaceful Japan to the next generation is a way to repay the war dead."

"Japan will exert utmost efforts to realize a society where the people enjoy living, by further developing goodwill relations with neighboring countries and establishing a lasting peace as a member of the international community," he said. . .Koizumi stressed Japan renounces war and will work toward creating peace around the world.

 

Expressions of deep remorse are welcome as is the acknowledgement that Japan inflicted great and irreperable harm to many Asians. But many people, I am sure, will say that it falls short of fully accepting responsibility and apologizing for wrongdoings.

Last year, Prime Minister Koizumi avoided going to visit Yasukini Shrine in Tokyo, the shrine dedicated to the war dead. Whenever politicians go, it sparks a wave of protests from citizens who believe the constitution forbids public officials from endorsing religious practices. At bottom, however, there is a divide between those who like to summon up memories of the war in the context of the dedication, suffering and patriotism it enatiled, and those who think the government was wrong in the 1930s and that these errors should not be celebrated. The following excerpts from an Asahi Shinbun article provide an indication of the kind of controversies that occured annually in Japan in August for many years. Supposedly, curent Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio will not be inclined to repeat these visits...but we shall see.

"The usual suspects at shrine"

Five Cabinet ministers visited Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday, the 57th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. The same group of people also visited at this time last year. When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited on Aug. 13, 2001, it sparked a torrent of rage from Asian countries that suffered from Japanese military excesses
during the war.

The five who visited were Toranosuke Katayama, minister of public management, home affairs, posts and telecommunications; Tsutomu Takebe, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Takeo Hiranuma, minister of economy, trade and industry; Jin Murai, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission; and Defense Agency Director-General Gen Nakatani. In addition, Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa, Hakuo Yanagisawa, state minister in charge of financial affairs, and Heizo Takenaka, state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy, paid visits to Yasukuni Shrine prior to Thursday. In all, eight members of Cabinet ministers have visited Yasukuni Shrine this summer.

Koizumi, perhaps heeding last year's reaction from Asia, did not visit Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday but instead went to the Chidorigafuchi Cemetery for the War Dead and laid a wreath.

Asked to comment on the reaction of neighboring nations such as China to visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Cabinet ministers, Takebe replied: ``China is China. Japan is Japan. I am I. I paid an ordinary visit to the shrine as an individual citizen today.'' Nakatani explained that he signed the shrine register as ``State minister-Gen Nakatani.'' He also said he paid for flowers to the shrine from his own pocket. ``Gen Nakatani, who is a state minister, paid a sincere visit as a Japanese,'' he explained later to reporters.

A multipartisan group of 54 Diet members that promotes visits to Yasukuni Shrine visited en masse. Among those joining that group were former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, Mitsuo Horiuchi, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's General Council, and Makoto Koga, former LDP secretary-general. Cabinet ministers Katayama, Hiranuma and Murai joined the entourage. Making separate visits to Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday were former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Lower House Speaker Tamisuke Watanuki.(IHT/Asahi: August 16,2002)

************************************

Update: Koizumi did visit Yaukuni in January 2003. Here is a brief account from the newspaper:

Koizumi's Recent Visit to Yasukuni January 2003

The Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shine in which war criminals including Tojo and other Class-A war criminals are enshrined. Below is the news for your reference.

"It is the New Year and I want to affirm anew the virtue of peace and show our resolve not to cause war again,'' Koizumi told reporters prior to the visit. How would we feel if the German Chancellor explains his visit to a cathedral enshrining Hitler and Nazi war criminals as a way to affirm anew the virture of peace and to show his resolve not to cause war again?

Thekla Lit
President of B.C. ALPHA & Co-chair of Canada ALPHA

http://www.asahi.com/english/politics/K2003011500438.html

January 15, 2003
New shrine visit, more criticism
By TARO KARASAKI, The Asahi Shimbun

The Yasukuni issue once again enrages China and South Korea.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi prayed for the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday, an early visit that was intended to minimize criticism from abroad but instead infuriated two of Japan's partners in trying to defuse the North Korea crisis. Koizumi renewed a pledge that Japan would never again cause war, during his third visit as prime minister to the shrine, where the nation's war dead, including Class-A war criminals, are enshrined. The prime minister's previous visits were timed around symbolic events, such as the Aug. 15 anniversary of the end of World War II, in 2001, and the shrine's spring festival in late April 2002. Both visits drew harsh criticism from Seoul and Beijing. The latest visit was apparently timed to minimize criticism from victims of Japan's aggression before and during World War II.

Early on Tuesday, Koizumi appeared confident that the visit would not hurt Japan's relations with China and South Korea.
``It is the new year and I want to affirm anew the virtue of peace and show our resolve not to cause war again,'' Koizumi told reporters prior to the visit. ``As in the past, I have explained (my shrine visits) to both countries. Our friendly relations have not changed, and I hope that they will understand our friendly relations will not change.''
However, South Korean and Chinese officials said they could not understand why Koizumi felt the need to pay homage at what critics say is a symbol of Japan's militarism. ``Prime Minister Koizumi's mistaken act will undermine the political base of China-Japan relations, and has hurt the feelings of the people of Asian countries, including China,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said in a news conference. Responding to a reporter's question, she said the timing of the visit was irrelevant because the heart of the matter was how Japan's leadership perceived history.

Kim Hang Kyung, South Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs and trade, summoned Toshinao Urabe, the minister of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to protest Koizumi's shrine visit.
``It is incomprehensible that the prime minister decided to visit following last year,'' Kim said.
``Considering the great pain and damage inflicted upon our country during Japan's colonization, we hope that the Japanese government takes sincere measures not to allow further damage.''
In Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry expressed concern that Koizumi's latest visit might cause problems.
``We hope that his motive will be fully understood by neighboring countries and there will be no negative impact on the cooperative relations'' in dealing with North Korea, said Jiro Okuyama, assistant press secretary at the ministry. Koizumi told reporters in December that he intended to visit Yasukuni Shrine in 2003, but did not specify when.
``The prime minister had made his intentions to visit clear, and it was a matter of timing,'' said a senior Cabinet official. ``The earlier the better to avoid causing complications in diplomatic relations.''

The official noted that Tuesday's visit was timed well before the ascension of South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun to office in February, as well as the finalization of top posts of China's Communist Party in March.

Koizumi's visit also came after a panel to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda recommended in December that a new national memorial for the war dead, unattached to any religion, should be erected. But the panel-criticized and largely ignored by members of the Liberal Democratic Party, including Koizumi-left the final decision to the government.
``I am not sure how the visit will be perceived,'' Fukuda told reporters. ``This is a matter of the prime minister's personal beliefs. We can only explain and have (China and South Korea) understand.''

************************************

See also this critical commentary on Koizumi's shrine visits from the Singapore

Times Straits

where we find this observation:

There continues to be an expectation for Japan's Prime Minister to do what Mr Richard von Weizsacker did for Germany. As President of the Federal Republic from 1984 to 1994, he often used his position to appeal to Germany's conscience on troublesome issues. In 1985, he made a famous speech challenging older German's assertions that they 'knew nothing' about the Holocaust. According to Japan specialist John Dower, Mr Koizumi could have followed Mr von Weizsacker's example by using Yasukuni 'as an occasion to give a great cathartic speech about what Japan did to its neighbours and people during World War II'.

Instead, the Japanese Prime Minister reads a wooden statement of 'regret' for Japan's role in the war every Aug 15 (the date of its surrender), while a procession of Cabinet ministers pay homage at the Yasukuni Shrine that honours ex-Prime Minister General Tojo and 13 convicted war criminals.

******************************************************************

And the controversy continues in 2011 although the Democratic Party of Japan leaders did NOT visit the shrine this August, some 50 conservative LDP leaders did:

Conservative Politicians Visit Yasukuni Shrine

More than 50 members of Japan’s conservative opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, including leader Sadakazu Tanigaki and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visited Yasukuni Shrine Monday.

The August 15 visit marks the 66th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, and by coincidence is the beginning of the Obon, a Buddhist festival that honors the souls of ancestors (although Obon is celebrated a month earlier in the Kanto region, where Tokyo and the Yasukuni Shrine are located).

Yasukuni Shrine was built in 1869 at the end of the Boshin War, which restored the Meiji Emperor to power after nearly 800 years of military dictatorships. The shrine honors 2,466,532 soldiers, including colonial Korean and Taiwanese soldiers, who died in 13 of Japan’s wars (although the vast majority of the souls enshrined at Yasukuni are from World War II). Japanese politicians have always visited the shrine to pray for the souls of Japan’s war dead. Problems began in 1978 after the souls of 14 class-A war criminals were enshrined at Yasukuni. The shrine also houses the souls of 1,068 class-B and C war criminals. Japan’s neighbors–particularly China, North Korea and South Korea–view visits from Japan’s leaders to the shrine as glorifying the militaristic past of their country, which has been slow to acknowledge its wartime crimes against humanity.

I have mixed feelings about Japan’s leaders visiting the shrine. On one hand, politicians have the right to honor their country’s war dead, just as American politicians visit Arlington National Cemetery. One could point out that visiting the shrine is a violation of the separation of church and state. But don’t American presidents place their hand on the Bible when they are sworn into office? On the other hand, I suspect these conservative politicians visit the shrine not despite the fact that it infuriates their neighbors, but because it infuriates them. Or at least because it satisfies Japan’s own right-wing nationalists.

Most Japanese view themselves as the victims of World War II, not as the aggressors. The average Japanese person is ignorant of World War II-era atrocities, and there is no shortage of people who think World War II began when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and ended when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The official cause of the war was that Japan was liberating its East Asian neighbors from their Western overlords and that the U.S., knowing its own imperialistic interests in East Asia were threatened by this humanitarian mission, prodded Japan into war by cutting off resources to their poor country. It doesn’t seem to matter that their East Asian neighbors have much more bitter memories of the few years of Japanese imperialism than of the centuries of Western colonialism. You’d be hard pressed to find a book in Japanese about the country’s war crimes, which include mass killings, human experimentation, biological warfare, use of chemical weapons, torture of prisoners of war, cannibalism, slave labor, sex slavery, looting. Therefore most Japanese don’t understand why this is a source of resentment from its neighbors, and assume that the Chinese and Koreans only want an official apology because they’re actually seeking monetary reparations due to their countries’ poor economies. Most Japanese certainly don’t think (perhaps correctly) that another country has the right to tell Japanese leaders where they can or can’t pray.

In 2005, one LDP politician suggested Yasukuni Shrine remove the souls of the 14 class-A war criminals, but the priests refused the request, citing separation of church and state.

LDP politicians can always do as Democratic Party of Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his cabinet did Monday: Visit a non-controversial shrine that honors Japan’s war dead that is not associated with Yasukuni.

Update?

In August 2013, high-ranking officials visisted the controversial Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese officials, including the younger brother of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; this ignited criticism from China and Korea, which see the visits as an homage to Japan's past wartime aggressions. Over the weekend several officials, including Abe's brother, senior vice foreign minister Nobuo Kishi, visited the shrine, according to Kyodo News. The visits started last week as part of an autumn festival and included 159 members of the Diet, Japan's national legislature. Although he is normally quite a rightwinger or a conservative hard-liner, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has so far refrained from visiting the shriner, but sent an offering instead. Mr. Abe had faced calls from his political base on the right wing of his governing Liberal Democratic Party to visit the shrine, after a spring festival in April and the 68th anniversary of the war’s end on Aug. 15. As he did on both earlier occasions, Mr. Abe instead sent a traditional offering signed in the name of the prime minister but paid out of his own pocket, in an apparent effort to appease his supporters without making too official a gesture or actually visiting.The offering, called masakaki, is usually a decorated branch or a potted sapling of the sakaki tree, a type of evergreen that is considered sacred in Shinto.

Something telling: back in 1995, during the short lived coalition cabinet led by Socialist Party leader Murayama, the Prime Minister delivered this profound apology:

Now, upon this historic occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end, we should bear in mind that we must look into the past to learn from the lessons of history, and ensure that we do not stray from the path to the peace and prosperity of human society in the future.

During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that history.

Building from our deep remorse on this occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Japan must eliminate self-righteous nationalism, promote international coordination as a responsible member of the international community and, thereby, advance the principles of peace and democracy. At the same time, as the only country to have experienced the devastation of atomic bombing, Japan, with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, must actively strive to further global disarmament in areas such as the strengthening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It is my conviction that in this way alone can Japan atone for its past and lay to rest the spirits of those who perished.

It is said that one can rely on good faith. And so, at this time of remembrance, I declare to the people of Japan and abroad my intention to make good faith the foundation of our Government policy, and this is my vow.

No one else before or since has been willing to go that far. In the same year, a Resolution was passed by the Diet but there was an opposing opinion expressed as well.

The following two documents are taken from John Dower's article at

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0003.103?rgn=main;view=fulltext:

• Document 1

  Resolution to Renew the Determination for Peace on the Basis of Lessons Learned from History

  June 9, 1995

  (Unofficial translation by the Secretariat of the Japan House of Representatives)

  The House of Representatives resolves as follows:

  On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, this House offers its sincere condolences to those who fell in action of wars and similar actions all over the world.

  Solemnly reflecting upon many instances of colonial rule and acts of aggression in the modern history of the world, and recognizing that Japan carried out those acts in the past, inflicting pain and suffering upon the peoples of other countries, especially in Asia, the Members of this House express a sense of deep remorse.

  We must transcend differences over historical views of the past war and learn humbly the lessons of history so as to build a peaceful international society.

  This House expresses its resolve, under the banner of eternal peace enshrined in the Constitution of Japan, to join hands with other nations of the world and to pave the way to a future that allows all human beings to live together.

  

• Document 2

  A Petition to Oppose the "Diet Resolution of Remorse and Apology" that One-Sidedly Condemns Our Country's War.

  (Translated by Tomomi Yamaguchi)

  On the occasion of the 50th anniversary (Heisei 7 [1995]) of the end of the War, there are plans for a Diet resolution that one-sidedly condemns our country for the war and expresses our "remorse" and "apology" to the relevant nations.

  Such a resolution means that, as an expression of our nation's will, we declare domestically and internationally that in the history of the world our country alone bears war responsibility and is a criminal nation. This inevitably harms the honor of our nation and race (minzoku), desecrates our heroes who died for the nation at its time of crisis, and will become a grave source of trouble for the future of our country and people. We oppose this Diet Resolution and offer the following petition. Your consideration is appreciated.

  Petition

  We strongly demand that the Diet uphold its conscience as the institution possessing the highest authority in the nation, and never adopt a resolution of "remorse" and "apology" that one-sidedly condemns our country's war, as has been planned for the fiftieth anniversary of the war's end.

  To: The Speaker of the House of Representatives The Chairman of the House of Councilors