This movie did not move me nearly as much as it seems to have moved others, perhaps because it resembles in certain respects other stories about World War II survivors. I can't help wondering how I would have reacted if I'd seen it when it was originally released. I suspect I would have found it much more affecting then than I do today. To be sure, the locale is more exotic than many other war survivor movies (though one suspects it was not actually shot in Burma). The gritty black-and-white film gives it a bit of a newsreel quality. But despite the left-over bones on the landscape, it does not make for a particularly powerful antiwar statement. All it really tells us is that Japanese soldiers were people too and one of them felt a pull to a more spiritual calling which he obeyed rather than return home with his wartime comrades.
Review of The Burmese Harp
