A film about Buddhism, or set in Japan, in honour of the birth of Buddha, celebrated in Japan on April 8 as 花祭り (Hana Matsuri, aka Flower Festival)

“Can't you see that whatever you do is futile? The armies of Britain and Japan can come and fight all they wish. Burma is still Burma. Burma is the Buddha's country.”

– old monk

While stationed in Burma, Mizushima disguises himself as a dhutanga, a wandering Buddhist monk, burying the remains of his fellow Japanese soldiers.

Snakes (巳) in celebration of Lunar New Year.

 

Ormen is an adaptation of the first two chapters of the novel Berättelsen om Iréne (Stig Dagerman, 1945).

 

In an army barrack, a sergeant is bitten by a snake. A soldier hides the animal in his bag in order to blackmail his superior. Iréne – who works in the same barrack's mess and is the soldier's lover – pushes her mother off a train during a quarrel about the daughter's lack of morals.

 

Dagerman's novel is a metaphor of Sweden's uncomfortable position in a post-WW2 world (it had declared itself neutral, which by default made it complicit in helping the Nazis). Due to its violence and nudity, outside its homecountry the film adaptation mostly played porn theatres.

“If that's Americanism, it's very hyphenated.”

– narrator

“Time to empty our slop pails and run a little water over our faces, then back to our cells for the entire day.”

– Fontaine