If you love Lawrence of Arabia, I'm fairly convinced you'll adore The Human Condition, but it depends on the expectations you set for yourself and how you approach watching all nine and a half hours of it. I saw a 70mm print of Lawrence for the first time Saturday afternoon. I'd seen the film many times, mostly on home video of one sort or another. A friend drove down to Austin from Dallas to see it for the first time, and he made an excellent choice, even with all the rain. I've never seen the movie in glorious detail, and save a couple projection hiccups and an infant that thankfully left us before too long, it was one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of the year thus far.
The thing I couldn't stop thinking about the entire time was how Lawrence relates to The Human Condition and vice versa. Kobayashi's film came before Lean's, and I wonder if Lean saw any part of Human Condition before, during, or after the making of Lawrence. I swear I'll stop going on and on and on about this WWII film trilogy at some point, but this is something I had rolling around in my head while taking in that glorious Criterion set, but since I knew I'd be seeing Lawrence again soon, I wanted to hold off on where I felt this taking me.
Before jumping in to this relationship I perceived, I have to get something off my chest. Something I've noticed in Human Condition reviews has bothered me greatly: other writers call it "challenging" and "a tough sit," each time specifically referring to the 574 minute runtime in place of questioning pacing issues or flow of the film itself. I feel these "critics" have taken the easy route of pointing at a number and choosing not to inject any critical thought into their judgment. Frankly, if only to be provocative, I'd allege some of them may have acted as if they'd seen it but in fact did not. Each individual film breezes by just like Lawrence has for me every time.
The Kobayashi epic is three Lawrences, not one continuous thing that has to be seen all at once. There is absolutely nothing wrong with watching them all in one marathon screening, but choosing not to do so does nothing to ruin the experience. In original release, Volume III came out nearly two years after Volume II. It's perfectly acceptable to watch one volume per weekend if you so choose. I feel remiss for not putting a disclaimer in my original review recommending people take this approach. I crammed the three films into subsequent evenings, and I wish in retrospect I'd let them breathe more properly upon initial viewings.
So, back to the analytical stuff I promised.
Both films are based on novels, one historical and the other historical fiction. Both also feature a reluctant soldier protagonist. For me, comparing the similarities in "Heroes' Journeys" would make for fascinating graduate thesis in film studies, but there's something much more dynamic to be found in the relationship between the films.
What really sets my synapses afire is the idea of how one can better appreciate The Human Condition having already seen Lawrence of Arabia. As a longtime devotee of the Lean film, Kobayashi's work felt like someone really liked me and had created a Japanese Lawrence trilogy, with the tragic loss of life and idealism magnified many times over for Kaji as compared to Lawrence. The major difference is that Kaji's story grows darker and more dire than Lawrence's. After all, Lawrence's British won WWI, and Kaji's Japan lost WWII. I may touch back on this as I do more research on Condition author Jumpei Gomikawa and his influences, which certainly could have included T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.