Yasuzo Masumura - Red Angel (1966)

It is 1939 and the Sino-Japanese war is in full swing. Sakura Nishi (Ayako Wakao), a young nurse, is sent to Manchuria where she experiences the war in all its facets first hand. She is raped by soldiers that the war has turned into nothing more than beasts, she helps amputate more legs and arms than anyone can count, removes bullets from soldiers that are barely alive, helps a doctor she is in love with to overcome his drug addiction and even holds her own in the final climatic battle. Written by Ryozo Kasahara and based on a novel by Yoriyoshi Arima, Red Angel has to be counted among the great war movies and is without a doubt the best film of Masumura I have seen so far. It is a tuff, bleak and pessimistic movie, but emotionally very honest, thought-provoking and erotic. It will not leave anyone indifferent.

Shot in hauntingly beautiful black and white, Red Angel has an episodic structure and uses Nishi's encounters with different patients to explore how the war affects the men and society as a whole in different ways. Through all of the suffering, violence and despair, Nishi truly remains an Angel, a supernaturally humane entity that tries to help where she can, even though Masumura and his screenwriter Kasahara never suggest that there could be something like a positive outcome. On the first night she does her rounds, Nishi is gang raped. Later, she takes pity on a soldier who lost both hands. She gives him sexual favors and takes him out to the city in order to make him feel better. In the end, he commits suicide because her kindness is too much for him who can't muster up any optimism for his life. In a terrific sequence at the end, Nishi helps Dr. Okabe (Shinsuke Ashida), whom she falls in love with, fight his heroine addiction. When it finally seems like they both could have a future together, he is killed by the enemy.

Through all of this, there is biting social commentary. The young soldier who lost both his arms will not be able to go home, because he symbolizes Japan's defeat in the war. He is used on the battle field, gives literally all he has to his country, and is finally disposed off. When someone finally shows him some form of appreciation, the contrast with his life prospect is too much for him to handle. War cripples men to such an extent that even love (heralded as the universal remedy for everything) can't help them. It dooms them even more. As with Dr. Okabe, he has to deal with a shortage of blood supplies and medicine and amputates leg after leg, arm after arm. He is torn by guilt because he knows what this means for the men, but the circumstances force him to act that way. There simply is no escaping this hopelessness. So he turns to drugs. "I'm a doctor", he says. "But I can't do anything here. Without the shots, I can't go on living. It's the same as soldiers. They kill men and try to forget by thinking it's patriotism. That helps." Powerful stuff.

Red Angel, though less formal than Masumura's films I have seen so far, is expertly filmed, the shots composed carefully, with an inquiring camera and relatively calm but poignant editing. As always, there are no close ups of the actors, the camera maintaining a sort of observant distance, which, like with Blind Beast or Irezumi, can be a problem, but doesn't prevent us here from being instantly sucked into the story and emotionally involved with the characters. The score is beautiful. The final battle sequence does not fall short of any battle scenes I have seen in contemporary movies, except that there is no CGI.

Highly recommended.