WAR SHORT: Kommando 1944 (2018)

                        Recently I have been turned on to war short films.  There are surprisingly a lot of them and many are quite good.  And they are short, for those with limited attention spans.  Starting with “Their War”, I had been on a winning streak lately.  My latest viewing was “Kommando 1944” which is written and directed by Derek Quick.  His goal was to highlight the shameful mistreatment of Japanese-Americans in WWII.  The main character is a Nisei whose family is being held in Manzanar.

                        The movie takes place in Germany in July, 1944.  A title card tells us:  “A massive famine has stricken Germany.  Thousands of Allied prisoners are sent to farms across the country to make food for the Nazis.”  The film immediately contradicts this statement by having a German farmer argue with an SS officer who is planning to take half of his workers to a death camp.  The farmer has seven POWs working his farm.  They are housed in barn.  One of the prisoners is a Japanese-American named Soo (Daniel Joo).  The others are antagonistic towards him because he is a “Jap”.  One of the men had a brother on the USS Arizona which adds to the tension.  Another prisoner is Jewish and God help him if the SS officer finds out.

                        “Kommando 44” has been a big hit on the film festival circuit.  It has won over 100 awards and claims to hold the record for most awards.  It is competently made for a low budget film.  The sets are basic, but it does close with a trip to Manzanar.  The German uniforms appear authentic, so the effort is there.  Unfortunately, the movie just is not anything special.  I was stunned to learn of all its accolades.  My first thought was that the festivals were judging it as a movie rather than as a war movie.  But even if you factor out what you would expect from a good war movie, you still end up with an average short movie.  In fact, the film relies on the audiences (and judges) to be uninformed about WWII and history in general.  If you are informed, there are some head-scratching moments that make the plot hard to take seriously.  (See below)  These distracting elements are not overcome by the acting and dialogue.  Although the cast has been lauded as an ensemble and Joo got some best actor nods, I found the acting to be amateurish and the dialogue to be trite.  The SS officer is stereotypically vile.  There is no nuance in this movie.

                        I hate being critical towards a movie that clearly was a sincere effort to make a statement about racism.  And if I hadn’t seen some truly great war shorts recently, I might have been more tolerant.  I also realize that I could be wrong because after all, I am swimming upstream from the rest of the critics.  But in my opinion, the movie is vastly overrated.

GRADE =  C

PROBLEMS:  The problems start with the title.  I have no idea why “Kommando 44” was chosen.  It seemingly has nothing to do with the plot.  I have already mentioned that the premise is these prisoners have been assigned to this farmer to help fight a famine.  And yet, half are going to be sent to a death camp.  This is obviously for dramatic purposes, but it is aggravating because I am not aware of the Germans sending American prisoners to death camps under any circumstances.  This is also the first I have heard of American prisoners being used as farm workers and billeted at the farm.  This seems to be sloppy history.  Why is the farmer siding with the prisoners?  The movie gives us no reason other than a story about a tree that is supposed to indicate that he is anti-Nazi.  And boy is he.  He is willing to risk his and his family’s lives by slipping a gun to Soo.  Speaking of Soo, history buffs must assume he was part of the 100/442^nd Infantry Regiment which fought in Italy.  He presumably was recruited from Manzanar where his girlfriend is still interned.  The problem here is that when he is confronted by the other prisoners, he says nothing about being a legitimate Japanese-American soldier.  In fact, the film gives the impression he does not even speak English.  That is highly unlikely for a member of the 100/442^nd.   He does not dispute that he is a Jap and is guilty by association for the death of the brother on the Arizona!  As far as the Jewish soldier, he is discovered because of a Star of David on his dog tags.  Wouldn’t the Germans have already checked his dog tags?  Three of the prisoners (Soo, the black G.I., and a thuggish white guy) are marched off to presumably the death camp.  They overpower their guards and learn that it is actually the ones remaining in the barn who will be liquidated!  The SS officer chose to spare the life of the one black guy.  Soo runs off to rescue them and the thug chases him because he is a runaway Jap who will rat them out to the Germans, and yet by the time they get to the barn, they are comrades.  Wait, what?  In the post script, the ex-thug goes to Manzanar to visit Soo’s girl.  He is in civilian clothes, but the guard at the gate salutes him.  An appropriate book-end to a movie that insults intelligence from start to finish.