Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

The Criterion Collection recently released a DVD of the 1956 film "The Burmese Harp" by Ron Ichigawa.  This black and white film is beautiful and moving.  Set in Burma at the end of World War II, it follows a Japanese soldier who escapes a POW camp, wanders the countryside as a Buddhist monk and ultimately embraces the mantle that has been his disguise.  He takes it upon himself to bury the dead, and at first, the Burmese people won't help him, but eventually they see that he is honoring the dead and burying the past, and they assist.  When, in the end, he hears that the Japanese prisoners are being sent home, despite the efforts of his soldier friends, he makes the decision to stay and live his life as a monk.

It's a simple story, but profound.  It's about the journey from fearing death to accepting it as a part of who human beings are and our impermanence on this earth.  The scenes stick with you, especially, for me, the huge resting Buddha statue that is a kind of cave/house inside.  When I think of the suffering of the Burmese people, I understand how this film honors them, and all the victims of war, and the human condition.  Death is all around us, but most people refuse to see or acknowledge it.  This soldier transformed into monk turns toward the human condition and finds compassion.

I write this as we find out Phillip Seymour Hoffman has died of a heroin overdose, leaving a partner and three children.  At forty six years old, he had a long life before him, yet somehow he could not face that gift, and find life precious.  We don't know the story, we never will, but we know our own loss.  His performances were jewels, and his sadness evident in each and every one of them.  He somehow could not turn compassionately towards his own human condition and love himself enough to seek help.  He had once 23 years ago, and perhaps he was weary or had lost sight of the preciousness of his own life.  We have not, and will have his films to treasure, but his death is a blow.  Impermanence is a hard fact to face.