(Movie) Silent Night directed by Rodney Gibbons

  This movie, for me, is like “Dogpound shuffle”, a gem almost completely unknown generally. A movie that I saw on TV on a delightful channel called Hallmark (which stopped being aired long time back) way back in middle school and a movie that I craved seeing ever since. Internet finally came to my rescue and I was finally able to get it on my hard drive…

There is a certain appeal about movies that play out in a room or a house and dont use outside locales (the best case in point being “The Man from Earth”). That is because you have to rely on intelligent and taut scripting and need to have completely fleshed out characters to hold attention. You more or less rely completely on conversation to make the story.

Right from the first frame, you realize that this is going to be a dramatic movie. The scene of  Elisabeth Vincken (Linda Hamilton) trudging on the snowy wastes of a forest tugging along her son Fritz Vincken (the narrator), the landscape littered with wrecked tanks and dead soldiers, makes you take notice…

Labels: drama, movies, true story, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 2:39 AM 2 Comments

(Book) Fatherland written by Robert Harris

I had read Harris’ Pompeii before and had found the setting fascinating. So the first thing that drew me to Fatherland was the setting – an alternate history world where the Nazis had won the war. And pretty soon, you realize that in Xavier March, you have a hero in SS uniform who stumbles upon one of humanity’s greatest kept secret, a secret always suspected but one so horrible that its almost impossible to believe!!!

If the setting is fascinating, so is the pace of the story.

Labels: alternate history, Books, germany, history, science-fiction, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 2:12 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) Fateless (Sorstalanság) directed by Lajos Koltai

A Holocaust movie based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same title by the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who wrote the screenplay…

Before I started this, I felt that I have had enough of Holocaust movies . For anyone who has been fed on Hollywood fare for a long time, a natural impulse is to compare any concentration camp movie to Schlinder’s List, which, as I have realized in time to be melodramatic and a one-sided portrayal (Hollywood would make us feel that only Jews died in the camps). The overdoing of the topic has unfortunately given license to Israelites to claim the mantle of victims – so that they can do to Palestinians what Hitler did to them.

But a few minutes into the movie, you realize that it is different. It has a quietness to it, almost an indifference to it, as if you are watching it from a distance. There are no gunshots, hectic action or any bravado. It populated by people who don't really know what's going to happen next, who feel that nothing terrible can really happen, believing in their own luck and following the herd – something that is all too human and completely real. The father is called for labour camp and is given a farewell dinner. No one can really fathom where he is going, beyond a vague notion of dread.

This is a movie that is almost a quiet reflection of how people behave during times of unimaginable horror – survival by any means for those who are caught in hell and denial by those on the outside.

For me, the most beautiful part of the movie is the last quarter, when our protagonist comes back to his homeland, a home that has changed and not only due to the bombed out buildings. The movie before this is about how different people try to survive – some by ruthlessly practical, some by having a dream (like walking on the streets he has left behind), some by turning to religion and some by compromising. Morality and ethics, construct of a peaceful society ceases to exist in the face of extermination at any moment. In the midst, flashes of humanity sometimes sparks, if only for a few moments…

The last part brings to mind the last part of “All quiet on the western front”. A person who has suffered something that is beyond understanding, realizes that outsiders can be curious, be in denial or be sympathetic, all without ever understanding. The outsider expects explanations in normal day-to-day terms, which the insider is incapable and ultimately unwilling to provide.

György realizes that he has to come to terms with it himself and has to try to find a ‘future’, as he is advised by all those who keep saying that its ‘all over now’. Everyone wants him (and by reflection themselves) to forget what has happened and look ahead. The fate of the victims and survivors…

What you take away from this movie is the feeling that there is no point in pointing fingers at those who ran the camps. We are betrayed as much by our own people (the camp overseers, the policemen who rounded up the Jews were all compatriots) as much by the invader. The greatest criminal is the art of forgetting that is perfected once the crisis is over.

The film is shot in beautiful chrome and has some stunning camera-work. There are not as much words spoken as emotions generated by the lights and shadows. You realize that sometimes words are truly insufficient to make the  mind grasp – we are left with only visuals that can penetrate.

A narrative that is a commentary on how we grapple with something we don't understand and which we are then unwilling to remember, unless we mythologize and glorify.

The drowned and the saved sometimes share similar fates…

Labels: biography, book adaptation, historical, Hungary, movies, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 12:11 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Great Raid directed by John Dahl

If all you like is great action visuals, watch only the last 45 minutes of this movie or go watch Saving Private Ryan. If you like a complete movie which concentrates on historical accuracy and goes caringly into depth of an issue that is viewed differently by different affected parties; If you don't mind sub-plots that gives a holistic understanding of the situation and if you like to understand the build-up to a mission, you will enjoy this movie immensely…

Other than the fact that movie is well-balanced and does not hurry you to the final firefight, what I liked best about the movie was the accuracy and the highlighting of the contribution made by an often overlooked part of the war – local resistance. The war would not have been won if not for the local intelligence provided by the resistance militia. With the overt focus of Hollywood on D-day landing (it provides for great visuals), most people would think that wars are won by heavily loaded landing parties (US would have been winning in Iraq that way isn't it?). Of course, this movie is all true and painstaking detailing has been done to replicate this, right down to the last bit of strategy.

Also, this is a theatre of war (The Pacific) that has received little attention from movie makers over the years. Only recently has the Soviet theatre started to receive attention (possibly because they had done the western theatre to death and needed newer visuals). The Philippines, Indonesia etc are places where the fiercest battles were fought, yet few directors have ventured there…

This is about the ‘Raid at Cabanatuan’, a mission to save POWs captured by the Japanese. As the war was drawing to close, the Japanese gave a directive to kill the POWs. After this practise became known, this mission was conceived. The Americans were helped in planning and execution of the mission by the Filipino guerrillas.

The film rotates between the Americans, the POWs, Margaret Utinsky (a nurse who helped the resistance), the urban resistance and the guerrillas. Care is taken to ensure that that each side’s viewpoint, motivation and courage is shown. This part is what I respect immensely about the movie. No one side completely dominated the movie. More emphasis was not laid on the Americans. Everyone was taken on as an equal partner, something that an overwhelming majority of movies of this genre tend to do. Sure, this makes this a little longer than usual but who said that good things always had to come in small packages…

The final mission is executed with great care and this makes for one of the best action sequences in a long time. You understand the strategy completely and you are a part of the nerve-wracking moments when the knife-edge strategy is on the point of collapse. Its a great visual treat to watch how the coordinated action on three fronts led to one of the biggest POW rescues in history…The final actual footage is a nice add-on.

Overall, a movie that gives you complete satisfaction – on the characterization front, on the action front, on the story and accuracy part.

Great watch!!!

Labels: action, book adaptation, movies, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 10:49 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Dirty Dozen directed by Robert Aldrich

Now, this is a movie that is usually first heard of before being seen, such is the iconic fame of this movie…

I approached this movie with some trepidation since with such famous movies, the expectations built up can spoil the experience of enjoying the small things in the story. Another problem with the classics is that many of the assumptions of the era (racial, ethnic etc) can be galling to the modern viewer.

My fears were unfounded however. Other than the fact that the Germans were cardboard in characterization (a common flaw in movies that is being corrected only now), the movie had the feel of a good action thriller with a quirky humour of its own. And it nothing galling about it, thankfully.

The story of  group of criminals given a chance of freedom in return for a mission has been repeated in its various avatars over the years. But the premise still retains its charm. A dozen of hard, gruff men (including an impossibly young Donald Sutherland) forced to get together by a maverick army captain; bonding together to form a band of brothers going out on a mission that was considered suicidal – this is a story that retains its freshness and excitement no matter how many times you portray it.

The story progresses quickly – right from the offer made to the condemned men, the training, the baptism by fire and the final mission. The bonding that happens between the wildly different men is shown naturally without any artificial constructs. The mission itself was pretty thrilling even though you argue on some of the obvious flaws in the assumptions in the execution of the final plan.

Another good thing about the movie was that there was no holier than thou attitude that western movies tended to take of the World War with respect to Germans. The movie never went preachy. Instead, it was obvious that for the condemned men, it was the US army that was the enemy. The Germans were remote and just a mission. This is refreshing especially from a movie from that era. There is a tacit understanding that every army is pretty much the same. It just depends which side you happen to be born in.

However, for all that its worth, there is a problem with the depth of characterization. Many of the characters seemed only slightly better than two-dimensional with the result that you fail to connect with them properly. You don't get to know them well enough to become a complete part of the proceedings. And this surely had nothing to do with the era. I got the feeling that more effort was made to manage the huge cast and to develop the storyline and the action than to develop the characters. The result is that movie is intensely enjoyable in most part but you just get the feeling that you got cheated on the emotional front. You just could not feel enough for the characters. Maybe that is a bit too much to ask for. But then for movies this famous, you do want it all, don't you?!

Labels: action, classics, movie adaptation, movies, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 2:40 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Black Book/ Zwartboek directed by Paul Verhoeven

The movie works great because it is densely populated by people whose characters are never in black and white, always in grey. This is something that makes the movie and the characters so believable. Because you understand that in an extraordinary situation such as war all that matters is survival. Its just your luck how you end up – least of all whether you end up on the winning side or the losing side.

Its a world war II movie and its about many things. It’s about atrocities, love, betrayals, partisans and a whodunit. And yes, its about survival, by any means necessary. What is refreshing about the movie is that it paints both sides with the same brush. Sometimes you forget that the allies have been ingrained in our psyches as the ‘good guys’ and the Germans as the incorrigible ‘baddies’. You find the same characteristics on both sides and as one of the end scenes showed (in a particularly disgusting and for the same reason intensely powerful scene), the sadism generally attributed to Nazis flows equally well in the veins of the historical victors.

The story revolves around Rachel Stein, a Jew in hiding in Netherlands, who witnesses the betrayal and killing of her parents and brother during an escape attempt. She then joins a resistance group and is given the task of infiltrating the SD (Sicherheitsdienst – a part of the SS) by seducing the SD commander Ludwig Müntze. But things soon go awry, from a tactical point of view as well as from an emotional point of view. It is here that the movie is masterful. The shift in perception is subtle but visible. The grey shade of the character in everyone becomes evident – for better or for worse. The script never lets you perform easy categorization. And this becomes stronger and stronger as we near the end.

The best part of the movie, according to me, is the very end scene. As the camera pans out to the sky, you see men, this time, Israeli colonists taking aim behind barricades to confront what we can assume are displaced Palestinians. It’s a delicious irony shown brilliantly – how easily the oppressed become oppressors. As Rachel says as she breaks down near the end of the movie – “Will it never stop, then!”, the movie subtly lets you know how it never stops.

A richly complex movie that says a lot of things that may not be apparent by a casual view. Its emotionally complex plot is a welcome one – a sign that we re successfully moving away from the “Rambo” image of World War II

Labels: movies, Netherlands, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:23 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) A Woman in Berlin directed by Max Färberböck

The story begins where most films about world war end – at the moment when Berlin capitulates. The story is about what happens then, a story that few people have wanted to speak about or put into film. The story is about neither heroics, nor ideology, nor something that would be written in textbooks. The story is about survival when the guns have fallen silent and when the people who remain need to make a new meaning of their shattered lives.

Both the victors and the vanquished.

The story is taken from a diary kept by an anonymous diarist (this diary caused such an uproar in Germany on its publication that the author preferred to remain anonymous) who was caught in the final collapse of Nazi state. Soon Berlin is surrounded by and filled with the Red Army, an army which had gone through hell to get to this victory. An army, more importantly for the inhabitants of Berlin, with a score to settle. Hitler had proclaimed the Slavic people to be untermensch or sub-human, fit only for extermination or slavery and the Wehrmacht (especially the SS) had taken up the task with enthusiasm. The result was that almost every soldier in the Red Army had someone or the other affected by the brutality of the Germans.

This did not bode well for the unfortunate men (mostly old – most able bodied men had been captured or dead or still fighting some hopeless battle somewhere) and the women trapped in the fallen city. It is well documented that the Red Army soldiers went on a raping spree as soon  as the city had fallen. We get an account of that from a woman who experienced firsthand the horrors of being a spoil of war. After the initial horrors, she begins to understand that in order to survive, she must accept the reality of the situation and get some control of the situation. It is then that she makes a morally bold decision, which to a peace-time civilian would seem like a reprehensible decision but which when taken in the context of the situation that the author finds herself in, is a intensely brave decision.

But you would be mistaken to take this movie as a series of brutal acts. The complexity in the situation – both from the German and from the Russian side is something that the author understands and acknowledges as the story moves on. She realizes that the brutality that had been unleashed on the Russians prevents them from viewing the Germans as human and that it is a primitive revenge that is being exacted by the Russians. She also finds that the Russians, contrary to expectations (and German propaganda), can be generous and open-hearted and some of them (like the Battalion commander) worth feeling more than affection for.

The next stage in the movie comes when the German men start to come back. And suddenly you see through their eyes and you realize that they can never understand what the women have been through. Some try to adjust and fail and some simply wrap themselves up in denial. But the women soon realize that they are really alone in this one…

It’s a complex story at its heart, a story about a side of us that we rather not face in our day to day life. Which is what makes this movie so wonderful. It takes an unflinching look and makes us realize how intimately life is not black and white. It takes a look at the decisions that people need to take in a world gone to hell.

But most of all, it’s a movie about intense quiet bravery and of an unflagging human spirit. It’s about a human will to survive and retain something of our own in the most hellish of situations. And this is supported by some of the best acting that I have seen. The actors are able to portray a surreal world, where everything seems unreal. A nightmare world where everyone is struggling to find a place and some meaning again.

This is a movie that you need to see with an uncluttered mind. This will, then, stay with you for a long time.

Labels: germany, movies, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:56 PM 1 Comments

Swing Kids directed by Thomas Carter

Two movies I saw back to back – this one and “Anonyma – a woman in Berlin” (review above), deal with the same subject. They are however separated by a span of about a decade or so. ‘Swing Kids’ takes place when Nazi power is in the ascendancy. The story is about a group of teenagers who are the ‘swing kids’ – youngsters who swear by American music (especially jazz). In a darkening environment where fascist puritanism was beginning to assert itself, this group move from joint to joint indulging in frenzied dance parties.

This peter-pan world is soon to be torn apart by the harsh realities of the time. Through various circumstances and for different reasons, Peter (Robert Sean Leonard) and Thomas (Christian Bale) join the Hitler Youth, naively believing that they can be Hitler Youth by day and Swing Kids by night. This wishful thing is soon shattered as the whole world seems to turn upside down for them. They are torn apart and soon realize that they have to choose a side.

The story is about those tragic choices that young people have to make in a world gone mad. The easy price of survival is compromise but the question that Peter raises is – is that survival or individual suicide. This is also a story of the consequences of a rigidly dogmatic society that imposes its morality on people – by proselytizing or by force.

The story is well told. The acting by the three main characters is brilliant and brings out the basic personality differences between the three. The changes that happen in them as they slowly choose their side or choose their stand meshes well with the slowly creeping darkening shadow that shatters everything. All in all, a great story well told.

Labels: movies, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 8:44 PM 0 Comments

Inglourious Basterds directed by Quentin Tarantino

A quirky film with signature Tarantino plastered all over it. It is quirky, irreverent, absolutely non-formulaic, action packed both in terms of dialogue and actual physical action. And it takes a fictional look at World War II, a view that is sardonic, funny, taut and serious all at the same time. It takes a very talented person to make a scene seem all four at the same time. And by god, it has been pulled off.

The title takes its name from a group of Jewish-American guerrilla group that forms to give the Nazis a taste of their own medicine (entirely fictional of course). Except as we see, they become not much different from the Nazis themselves. When the baseball bat swings and smashes the skull of the Nazi officer kneeling, you are jolted into realization that the Allies were about as brutal as the frequently excoriated Nazis (for those who need facts to back this up – look up Dresden bombing). Especially when the Nazi officer refused to betray his comrades and replied a few seconds earlier to the question asked as to his reason for getting the Knight’s cross – “For Bravery”. And the next thing you know is the Allied soldier killing a kneeling unarmed man. It can present quite a paradigm shift.

The movie progresses via ‘chapters’, which take up different threads of the main story at different points of time, with the final chapter typing up all the stories. Much of the stories are made up of extended dialogues, the tautness of which never flags, even when the conversation is between just two people for over 15 minutes. The camera work and a sense of danger and possibility of sudden violence keeps you on the edge. The German officer Hand Landa played by Christoph Waltz is both terrifying and charming to a high degree (and his presence overshadows everyone else, including Brad Pitt). His conversations with different people in the movie are truly memorable for their undertone of menace.

The setting, the story, the premise is highly fictional of course. This is no history lesson by a long shot. But you don’t go into this movie thinking of military logic. Nazis could not have been vanquished as stupidly as shown here (the climax though is a bit too much to take and for me, did take away some of the quality of the movie). But then, this is supposed to be a movie that you go along with the flow and enjoy the action unfolding on the screen.

It’s a hell of a ride!!!

Labels: action, movies, other, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 12:00 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Counterfeiters directed by Stefan Ruzowitsky

A film in german, this is based on the true story of Operation Bernhard, a secret plan by the Nazis to destabilize the economies of United Kingdom (and later United States) by flooding them with counterfeit money. For this, they put together a team of forgers from the various prisoners in the concentration camps. The leading forger is Salomon ‘Sally’ Sorowitsch, around whom the film revolves.

I think the best part of the movie is the way Sally tries to keep together his men and tries to keep them alive in conditions where the prison guards dont think twice before putting a bullet through your head. A team that consists of a TB patient, a person who decides to rebel on an individual basis to deny the Nazis victory and other characters who compromise for various reasons…among all these, Sally tries to keep himself and his men alive.

What I liked about the character that is Sally is his deadpan expressions which hide a solid though quirky ideology. His main aim is stay alive, at all costs. He does not have an ideology as such nor does he indulge in analysis of the situation on any other basis except whether it keeps him and his men alive…

And as a background runs one of the biggest attempted frauds in history, a scam that could have turned the tide of the war. At the end, it is only Sally and his men who, risking their lives, did not allow this to happen.

It is a fast moving movie whose pace never slackens. The brutality of the camps are shown indirectly and perhaps because of that, the setting seems more terrifying because you realize that for all the ‘better’ treatment that the forgers are getting till the time they are useful, one failure can lead them straight to the gas chambers.

I think what I liked best about the movie was that it did not moralize or shed tears about the victims and the brutality (there have been too many movies about that – has almost become a template of sorts) but used it as an implicit background and showcased a thriller where the most unlikely men became heroes mostly simply by the defiant act of staying alive and denying their oppressors the final victory…

Labels: book adaptation, Foreign Movies, movies, thriller, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 10:17 PM 0 Comments

(Book) Johnny got his Gun written by Dalton Trumbo

Very few books can make everything around you irrelevant except the words that you read. This for me, is one of them.

I sincerely believe that this is one of the most important books of our times and the surprising thing is that so few people seem to have heard of it, let alone read it. I believe that this book tells us more about the tragedies of the last century in particular and of the way we live in general. I also believe that this book is a terrifying reminder of all that we keep conveniently forgetting.

The general perception among the lay reader is that the best and most important anti-war novel to come out of world war I is “All quiet on the western front” by Erich Maria Remarque. I believed that until I read this. It has a terrifying and a savage power that almost gets you by the throat at times, when its words probe deep into the reader’s mind and psychology. Its words tear at you and embed themselves deep and wakes you up completely from whatever sort of slumber you have been in.

This book is about Joe Bonham, who is the narrator of this novel. A foot soldier in World War I, he wakes up in a hospital bed and realizes that he is deaf. He is miserable but then realizes that he could have been worse. Slowly however, he begins to realize, to his terror, that he has become a living dead (which becomes for him an unique platform to have his ‘say’). He has not only lost his hearing ability, he has lost his arms, his legs, and his face has become a hole without a nose, mouth, eyes – just a forehead. An impossible case, as he himself admits but which has become true nevertheless…

And therein begins the story. Completely helpless and unable to communicate at all to the outside world, Joe begins to try and resurrect himself, try and find ways to cope. For example, he is unable to do something that we are take as an implicit – keep track of time, which he realizes is the backbone of keeping one’s sanity. After multiple failed attempts, he finally dawns upon an ingenious solution to keep time – with the only sense he has left, through his skin.

As he begins to create his own universe, we also begin to discover Joe, as we go along with him as he remembers the events of his short life – his father, mother, siblings, friends and some of the women in his life especially Kareen – the woman he loved and whom he left behind when he went to fight the great war. Each part and member of his life is remembered in different episodes and across time – from his childhood to late adolescent. We go through his ups and downs as he grapples with his world just like anyone else – with heartbreaks, joys, sorrows and finding love. Which brings into contrast the cruelty with which his life was brought to a crashing halt – all the more cruel since due to his condition, he could not be identified and so it was unlikely that his family, friends or Kareen ever knew he was alive.

While he thinks about his life, he also begins to think (which by his own admission is all that he can do really) and slowly develops a philosophy (which he wants, at the end, unsuccessfully, to share with the world) about what is most important to an individual (the part which more than anything makes it an important anti-war book). He also becomes aware of his unique position – he is one who has, in many ways, come back from the dead and he realizes that he can tell the world a thing or two of truth that no-one can tell.

The book ends with him making a superhuman effort in coming up with a way in which he can communicate to the outside world only to be thwarted in his attempt to get his message across to the world (and what he wants to say to the world makes for some chilling reading and for me, was the best part of the book). He is thwarted, he realizes, by a world that is afraid of what he can say and the truth of what he wants to say. Its a world that needs to lie for things to go on….

The book is extraordinary in that it combines the personal and political beautifully. The passages about his life are poignant, especially his parting with Kareen and when he remembers the rituals at home at Christmas. The passages about his developing philosophy is one of the most stirring cries for sanity that I have read in a long long time.

The whole book hammers through you as you read it. And when you have read it through, the book’s words simmer long after you have closed the covers. For me, it is one of the rare category of books that change a part of your life’s philosophy and something that becomes a part of you; one of those books whose words come back to you when you are doing something completely different…

Labels: anti-war, Books, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:39 PM 0 Comments

The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

A Booker Prize winner. I don't know if I am the only one who finds most of the Booker prize winners a tad boring and also a tad undeserving. But this has happened more than once now and I am beginning to wonder. But whatever it may be, the fact is that I found this ‘famous’ book wanting.

The premise is brilliant though seems slightly overused now – the story is set on four diverse characters scarred by war (in this case WWII) who come together by chance in an abandoned hospital in Italy. The story follows every character’s story from its origins and how the war changed everything – personal to ideological. How an impersonal war became all too personal.

The characters are the ‘English Patient’ – a completely burnt patient whose very identity is not known and apparently he does not remember, Hana – the nurse who chose to nurse him alone after the other nurses moved away to a safer location, Caravaggio – a thief who is also an uncle of Hana and Kim (Kirpal Singh), an Indian sapper with the British Army.

All four have lost too many things in the war, beyond repair and it would seem, beyond any scope of understanding. The story is about how they collide with each other in the hospital and how they begin to understand each other’s life even though everything falls apart at the end – as is painfully obvious from the start.

So far so good. The first problem I have is that I like the characters in a book to speak for themselves and not have the writer say it and make it obvious. Secondly, the characters left me cold except on certain occasions. There was just not much flesh on them to make them close to you. Everything was being felt in the abstract. Maybe that was the whole intention of the book – of having a to be hazy and dreamy feel to the narrative. But atleast for me, it didn't work out.

You saw the ending before it came. The narrative was disjointed and was rambling at time. The account of the desert and its explorations by the mysterious ‘English Patient’ was a redeeming part of the book but it went on for too long and somehow made you lose the link with the rest of the book. Too much attention was there on the patient and the others were given hurried characteristics that made them seem slightly two dimensional.

The book picked up only at the very end when the true identity of the English Patient was revealed and the situation that develops when Kim confronts the English patient with the news of the bombing of Hiroshima which shook his belief underpinnings was memorable, but it was too late for me at any rate.

I don't know whether I would watch the movie anytime soon. I hope it is better than its source…

Labels: Books, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 12:17 AM 0 Comments