Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on July 22, 2005 at 11:35:53

I watched this "B" stock film last night. 2001 film starring Robert Carlyle and Kiefer Sutherland and Ciarán McMenamin about a group of Scottish soldiers in World War II, who, together with approximately 61,000.00 other soldiers, were captured by the Japanese in Thailand in 1942. Sutherland plays an American P.O.W.

The Japanese wanted to invade India, and they needed a railroad to transport supplies for the effort. Approximately 3000 kilometers. The P.O.W.s were ordered to build the railroad, which they completed six months ahead of schedule. After the railroad was built, half the P.O.W.s were taken from the camp and "never seen again."

There is no combat in the film, all taking place after their capture. Thus, it begs obvious comparison to Bridge on the Riber Kwai. Whereas the entire Kwai film involved the building of the bridge, the road is complete half-way through the former. The rest of the film involves Carlyle's attempt, with five other soldiers, to break into the armory and take over the camp. As other prisoners astutely pointed out, that Japanese do not really guard the perimeter, because once outside the camp, there is nowhere to go. They are in the jungles of Thailand. While in the armory, they grab the gunds, but cannot locate the ammunition. They are found out and executed. Except Carlyle, who is saved when another P.O.W. says something to the Japanese captain, who then crucifies the other P.O.W.

The film is mostly about the atrocities of being in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The only sympathetic Japanese soldier is a translator, educated at Cambridge. We also learn some Japanese military customs. For example, it was considered a disgrace for a Japanese soldier to be assigned to a prisoner of war camp. The captain, who appears to be a military prototype, is there because he took the blame for his superior when his superior officer made a strategic blunder, resulting in the death of most of the regiment. Apparently, it is honorable for an officer to take the blame for the mistakes of a superior officer.

The film not only involved the torture of the men, but also their attempts to maintain religion (which the Japanese considered superstition, ironic because they held the emperor to the same deity), obtain education, put on plays, and conduct an orchestra with home made instruments.

The camp is liberated, and the broken spirits of the prisoners is shocking. They are almost as afraid of their liberators as they are of the Japanese. The end credits role over a reunion between one of the Scottish officers and the Japanese translator, and we learn that the Scottish sergeant became a preacher at Princeton, the translator a Buddhist monk. We see a march of the survivors in a parade in Scotland, plus old photographs. Those images made the events depicted in the film more poignant.

It is a well acted film. Hollywood money inevitably made this film more the like the mindless bombfest known as "Windtalkers." Compared with Kwai, it lacks the breathtaking vistas and cinematography. It is grittier, and focuses more on the Japapese treatment of prisoners of war. Recommended.