I saw this in the theater when it came out and I've seen it twice since (including just now).
It's a very confusing movie. I'd recommend it overall for the discussions that will ensue with others after watching -- but I'd certainly also expect viewers to be irritated at some of the scenes and some of the apparent messages of the film.
**** SPOILERS ****
So much of this movie consists of scenes that are contradictory and also terribly hard to relate to any narrative.
For example, we see Captain Yannoi in an early scene furious that Sergeant Hara has allowed a prison guard attempt hara kiri. So why does he later stage that guard committing hara kiri and insist that everyone watch it?
We see repeated flashbacks to the childhood of Jack Celliers and later to his experiences at school. Yet these have no effect that I can see on the narrative in the prison camp.
Why does Celliers: a) come out of the hills to surrender to the Japanese? b) refuse to fight with Captain Yannoi (when Celliers obviously has no problem fighting other Japanese)? If he had no desire to combat the Japanese, then why does he say he was thrilled to enlist when the war came?
Why does Captain Yannoi simply drop the desire to replace the prisoners' leader?
How can the movie pose a moral equivalence between the trial and execution of the brutal and sadistic Sergeant Hara (especially since the war crimes trial undoubtedly had due process -- all such trials did) when the movie has made the contrary point of the unfairness of Celliers' trial when he had no counsel after being taken as a prisoner of war?
At the end of the movie, the brutal war criminal is told that the reason he is to be punished after four sadistic years is because "they think they're absolutely right, just as you thought you were absolutely right - and the truth is we're all wrong". REALLY?
We're all wrong to judge the morality of beheadings, the burial of people alive, random beatings, crippling as punishment?
If so, is there no brutality toward man that is immoral?
And if there do exist things that are wrong, why is it wrong to punish?
Are there no crimes of violence which should ever be punished?
If not, why not?
What is morally equivalent about giving a trial, establishing the facts and then finding that, well, burying others alive is quite wrong, and that the perpetrators should be punished?
Is cruelty really merely a culturally relativist notion? I don't think so. I think it's held the world over.
Otherwise, why would anyone be shocked by the Holocaust? Would this movie not say "it's a German thing; you wouldn't understand"?
Would the movie say that condemnation of the Nazis for attempting to eliminate a whole people is simply due to the fact that we're "absolutely sure we're right to say that millions should NOT be gassed to death - and that's why they're being punished - but of course we're all wrong"?
If we see a man on the street cutting the head off a child, should we deem the man's subsequent punishment to merely reflect a cultural bias against beheadings? The condemnors are merely morally self-righteous judges who don't understand that we are unable to judge the morality of the child's decapitation? And if we do so, we're all wrong?
If such are the movie's messages, I reject them as foul.
**** SPOILERS END ****
The movie is interesting - David Bowie and Tom Conti are excellent. I wish Bowie did more movies, he has a real magnetism on screen. However, don't expect the movie to make a lot of sense.
It's a very confusing movie. I'd recommend it overall for the discussions that will ensue with others after watching -- but I'd certainly also expect viewers to be irritated at some of the scenes and some of the apparent messages of the film.
**** SPOILERS ****
So much of this movie consists of scenes that are contradictory and also terribly hard to relate to any narrative.
For example, we see Captain Yannoi in an early scene furious that Sergeant Hara has allowed a prison guard attempt hara kiri. So why does he later stage that guard committing hara kiri and insist that everyone watch it?
We see repeated flashbacks to the childhood of Jack Celliers and later to his experiences at school. Yet these have no effect that I can see on the narrative in the prison camp.
Why does Celliers: a) come out of the hills to surrender to the Japanese? b) refuse to fight with Captain Yannoi (when Celliers obviously has no problem fighting other Japanese)? If he had no desire to combat the Japanese, then why does he say he was thrilled to enlist when the war came?
Why does Captain Yannoi simply drop the desire to replace the prisoners' leader?
How can the movie pose a moral equivalence between the trial and execution of the brutal and sadistic Sergeant Hara (especially since the war crimes trial undoubtedly had due process -- all such trials did) when the movie has made the contrary point of the unfairness of Celliers' trial when he had no counsel after being taken as a prisoner of war?
At the end of the movie, the brutal war criminal is told that the reason he is to be punished after four sadistic years is because "they think they're absolutely right, just as you thought you were absolutely right - and the truth is we're all wrong". REALLY?
We're all wrong to judge the morality of beheadings, the burial of people alive, random beatings, crippling as punishment?
If so, is there no brutality toward man that is immoral?
And if there do exist things that are wrong, why is it wrong to punish?
Are there no crimes of violence which should ever be punished?
If not, why not?
What is morally equivalent about giving a trial, establishing the facts and then finding that, well, burying others alive is quite wrong, and that the perpetrators should be punished?
Is cruelty really merely a culturally relativist notion? I don't think so. I think it's held the world over.
Otherwise, why would anyone be shocked by the Holocaust? Would this movie not say "it's a German thing; you wouldn't understand"?
Would the movie say that condemnation of the Nazis for attempting to eliminate a whole people is simply due to the fact that we're "absolutely sure we're right to say that millions should NOT be gassed to death - and that's why they're being punished - but of course we're all wrong"?
If we see a man on the street cutting the head off a child, should we deem the man's subsequent punishment to merely reflect a cultural bias against beheadings? The condemnors are merely morally self-righteous judges who don't understand that we are unable to judge the morality of the child's decapitation? And if we do so, we're all wrong?
If such are the movie's messages, I reject them as foul.
**** SPOILERS END ****
The movie is interesting - David Bowie and Tom Conti are excellent. I wish Bowie did more movies, he has a real magnetism on screen. However, don't expect the movie to make a lot of sense.