Can’t Germans make war movies too?
While I wasn’t online for two days, I spent some of my time watching some VCDs gathering dust in our cd rack. Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor, Gladiator and Armageddon. I think I’ve seen enough blood, battles and deaths for now. I’m reminded too much of the costs of war. Too much that it dangerously makes me numb to the many human casualties.
Oddly, even if it was the least dramatic (and least realistic for me) of the four, it was Armageddon which… moved me. Especially that part when Harry (Bruce Willis) was saying goodbye to his daughter (Liv Tyler) before he (I think everybody has watched it anyway) died in order to save the world.
Anyway, what’s common among the movies (except Gladiator, I guess) is classic American arrogance. Or whatever you want to call it.
The bias is there, of course. American lives are so much more important than yours, than mine, than anybody else’s. They are always the heroes, world problems are their business, and that’s not enough, they’re always the victims too (aside from the Jews, of course), when worse comes to worse! The Germans, the Japanese and all other American enemies since then (and till now) are the ‘bad guys’, and it’s okay and justified to make a carnage out of them without sympathy. Well, the winners do get to write history (and make movies about it). I guess there’s little I can do about that.
What I’m saying is, in connection to the films, the movies asked me to sympathize with the American protagonists. Yes, most of the time, it presented fundamental and universal human tragedies among families, brothers, friends and lovers. And I’m not that numb to not feel that! But I found sympathizing difficult to do sometimes. For some reasons including those in the previous paragraph. For one thing too, I’m not American, so the patriotic approach in the two war movies didn’t affect me. At all.
Life is sacred. Being an ‘enemy’ (also because it’s relative to which side you’re on), a ‘criminal’ or a non-American should not give you less of a right to live. Yes, while I’m at it, I’m against death penalty too.
Yeah, I guess I’m exaggerating. They did make the movies, and I guess it’s their choice and right to protray themselves the way they want to. And I guess it’s just my/our fault that I/we chose to watch them and yet complain. (But see, the choice is often between Filipino movies with uninteresting plots, and big-budget Hollywood blockbusters, it’s not as if the choice not to is easy). Hollywood does have dominance over international movie markets.
Bikoy’s rating:
Saving Private Ryan: 8.5/10
Pearl Harbor: 6/10
Gladiator: 9/10
Armageddon: 6.5/10
Maybe you just need to broaden your horizons and not restrict yourself to Hollywood movies. For a war movie to be good, it has to have anti-war sentiments(like “Saving Pvt. Ryan”), otherwise, it might as well be another John Woo “shoot ‘em up”.
May I recommend the following outstanding films:
Black Rain (1989) - a poignant drama of A-bomb survivors. Watch this with a girl and be known in your circle as “the Sensitive Man”.
Das Boot (1981) - the brave men of the Kriegsmarine fought the war not for Der Fuhrer but for each other.
Hotaru no Haka (1988) - don’t let the anime fool you - if Bruce Willis’ hackneyed posturing was good, then buy a box of Kleenex for this masterpiece.
BTW, Fox was selling “Pearl Harbor” DVDs on a buy-one-get-one-free deal and it still didn’t sell.
NICK: thank you for the recommendations!! Now I just have to find out where I can see/get these…