100 BEST WAR MOVIES #58. The Painted Bird (2019)

 

                         “The Painted Bird” was mentioned as one of the best war movies of 2019.  It was the best movie to come out of Czechoslovakia that year.  Directed by Vaclev Marhoul, it is based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski.  Kosinski insisted the novel was autobiographical as it portrayed his experiences as a young Jewish boy fending for himself during WWII.  It has since been debunked as it has been proven that Kosinski’s family was safely hidden by Polish people and he was never roaming the countryside on his own. The film won 9 Czech Lion Awards (equivalent to the Oscars) including best movie. Incredibly, it was not nominated for the Best International Picture by the Academy Awards.

                  The movie starts off with a scene that may have caused some audience members at the Venice Film Festival to walk out during a showing.  A boy (Joska -  Petr Kotlar) is chased through the woods by some older boys.  He is knocked down and the pursuers pour gasoline on his pet ferret and set fire to it.  And we’re off!  What follows is an odyssey that is a series of vignettes as Joska encounters a variety of humanity.  This being a Holocaust film, you can bet you won’t be seeing the cream of the crop.  Olga (Ala Sakalova) is a faith healer, Miller (Udo Kier) is the cuckold in a love triangle between his wife and the hired hand, Ludmilla (Jitka Cvancarova) is a lusty woman who lives in the woods, Lekh keeps birds and at one point paints one of them (hence the title) and sets it free with nonDisneyesque results.  A priest (Harvey Keitel) makes him an altar boy, but then he is passed on to a pedophile.  Labinia (Julia Vidrinakova) is young woman who toys with him sexually.  A sniper named Mitka (Barry Pepper) becomes his mentor when he joins the Soviet army.  It’s hard to say which of these scenes caused the walk-outs at several film festivals.

ACTING:                      B

ACTION:                      N/A

ACCURACY:               N/A

PLOT:                           A+

REALISM:                   N/A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A

SCORE:                       none

 

BEST SCENE:  the Russian sniper

                  While not the best war movie in 2019 (that would be “Danger Close”), it is probably the second best.  I did give it the Buffy for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Setting aside the problems with the novel, the movie does not claim to be a true story.  Whether any young boy had Joska’s experiences, you have to admit they are memorable.  The movie reminds of “Come and See” with its young protagonist and its surreal incidents.  It also is similar in that I found neither film to be equal to its reputation for churning stomachs.  Maybe that’s a personality flaw of mine.  I never have had a nightmare after watching a movie. I don’t expect the best of the lower classes in a war situation.  I’m not saying that parts are not hard to watch.  It is the only movie where you will see:  a boy buried to his neck  and being pecked by ravens, two cats making love, two eyes gouged out, a ferret set on fire, a pack of birds killing a painted bird, a woman abused by a bottle, a pedophile eaten by rats, a kid thrown in a cesspool, a boy throw a goat’s head through a window, and a boy pull on the legs of a hanged man so he can die quicker. If any of those descriptions turn your stomach, don’t watch this movie. But war movies are not supposed to glamorize war.  The movie’s themes of man’s inhumanity towards man and the corruption of youth are familiar ones.  This movie does approach those cliches from a different perspective which shows that even after reviewing over 800 war movies, I can still see something I have never seen before.  Like a boy buried up to his neck with crows pecking at him.  (See the poster.)  Cinematographer Vladimir Smutny creates some stunning visuals like this one.

                  The structure works partly because of the cast.  The acting is strong and is juiced by the appearance of familiar faces like Keitel and Pepper.  It all depends on the neophyte Kotlar and he is great in his first role. He has to emote with his face as his character does not speak until the 58 minute mark. And it is the only time he speaks. The movie is not dialogue driven. Again, one thinks of Aleksei Kravchenko of “Come and See”, who was also making his debut.  All of the incidents are interesting.  The movie has no lulls, although each character that Joska encounters is radically different from the last.  Surprisingly, and a bit offensively, some of the more positive characters are the Germans.  It is not surprising that Poland was upset with the depiction of its people.  It is not specified which country Joska is roaming through, but the book made that clear.  Director Marhoul insisted on using Interslavic language so no particular country was tainted.  However, Poland refused to have anything to do with the production.  I get that.

                  Don’t be like me and avoid this excellent movie.  Be tough.

100 BEST WAR MOVIES #59. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

 

            “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is the epic retelling of the attack on Pearl Harbor told from both points of view.  The American scenes were directed by Richard Fleischer (The Vikings).Akira Kurosawa had to be replaced as the Japanese director because he was not a good fit for a movie that was concerned with getting in on time and on budget. It is from the war epic genre that includes The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and Midway .  It fits comfortably in that group, but differs from them because it is less character driven.  Of the group it has the most documentary feel and the most fidelity to historical accuracy.  It also does not have an all-star cast.

            TTT was released in 1970.  It was a joint American-Japanese project with separate directors and production.  The two separate “films” were then intertwined to create the finished product.  The movie bounces back and forth between the opposing sides seamlessly. It even has both national anthems. The screenplay was written by two Japanese and an American. It was based on the eponymous nonfiction book by Gordan Prange and “The Broken Seal” by Ladislas Farago.  Prange vetted the script.  There were numerous technical advisors including Japanese who participated in the attack. TTT strives for authenticity, sometimes at the expense of entertainment.  The Japanese dialogue is subtitled which is helpful in understanding the Japanese psyche.

            The movie opens with a majestic musical theme that has a hint of the orient. The early part of the film details events leading up to the attack.  It is an excellent tutorial on the political and strategic machinations prior to the attack.  One flaw is the lack of a clear time line for events before Dec. 6.  The movie offers a brass-eye view from the governmental and military levels.  The main American characters are Gen. Short (Jason Robards) and Adm. Kimmel (Martin Balsam).  We also get a large dose of Yamamoto, Hull, Stimson, and Nomura.  The movie forgoes the grunt level characters like Duhon (A Bridge Too Far) or Garth (Midway).  There are no major fictional characters.

ACTING:                      B

ACTION:                      A   8/10

ACCURACY:               A

PLOT:                           A

REALISM:                   A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A

SCORE:                       B

BEST SCENE:  the takeoffs from the Japanese carriers

BEST QUOTE: Adm. Kimmel (after almost being killed by a stray bullet):  It would have been merciful if it had killed me.

            TTT fits in all the “greatest hits” of the Pearl Harbor story.  These include: the code-breaking effort, the radar pick-up, Taylor and Welch in their P-40s, the U.S.S. Ward versus the Jap sub, Dorie Miller, the Hull-Nomura interchanges.  Any fan of the battle will not be disappointed.  Fans of faux dramatics will be.  This movie is very different from “Pearl Harbor” in that respect.

            The attack is spectacularly done.  It features real planes.  B-17s and P-40s were available and American planes like T-6s were mocked up to play Zeros. The planes drop bombs and torpedoes. One of the B-17s was forced to make a crash landing when one of its wheels did not come down. The footage was used in the movie. The stunt flying is well done.  The dog- fighting acrobatics are commendable, but you do get the fake looking shots from the front typical for air combat scenes from that era.  At times there were thirty aircraft in the air. The attack on Hickam Air Field is noteworthy as is the explosion of the Arizona.  There are plenty of explosions in this movie, but that is appropriate, of course.  The movie won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects and Cinematography.  It was as good as you could get pre-CGI. It was nominated for Best Picture, Art Direction, and Editing.

            The acting is just average from a less than all-star cast, but the movie is not meant to be an actors’ showcase. 16 of the cast served in WWII.  Martin Balsam was a B-24 radio operator, James Whitmore was a lieutenant in the Marines for the invasions of Saipan and Tinian, and Jason Robards was in the Navy. He served on the heavy cruiser Northampton which was sunk in the Battle of Tassafaronga and he was plucked out of the water by a destroyer. He next was on the light cruiser Nashville for the invasion of the Philippines. It was hit by a kamikaze with 223 casualties. The movie has an incredible 51 characters that have Wikipedia biographies. (“The Longest Day” had 37.)

            TTT resembles "The Longest Day" in its impartial treatment of both sides.  In fact, it could be argued it may be a bit too sympathetic to the Japanese.  The movie was a bigger hit in Japan than in the U.S. (where it bombed).  Contrast that with “Pearl Harbor”.  Another key theme is the rehabilitation of the reputations of Short and Kimmel who were made scapegoats in the aftermath of the disaster.  The movie makes a strong case for complacency being the major flaw of the American leadership. not malfeasance.  That plus the incredible luck the Japanese had.

The obvious comparison is to “Pearl Harbor” and whichever one you prefer tells  a lot about you as a viewer.  If you are like me and prefer accuracy at the expense of entertainment, you would pick TTT.  I have to say that most of my students would prefer the more splashy (and pompous) PH and would find TTT boring, especially in the lead-up to the attack.  The best thing to do is to watch them as companion pieces.  You can avoid reading up on the attack if you take that approach.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Yamamoto and the Navy did have a bad relationship with the Army. He was skeptical about the war, but the plan was his. The cause of the attack was the American embargo.  The code-breaking effort and results are accurate. The plan and execution of the attack is close to the real attack. For instance, the Japanese did adapt their torpedoes to handle the shallowness of the harbor. The poor preparation of the naval and army facilities is sadly true. The planes were lined up on the runways for fear of sabotage. The Japanese embassy did have trouble typing the message. The Ward sinking the minisub is true, but the call that was made was not blown off by the next up the chain of command. Several calls were made before Kimmel was contacted and he took no action and did not pass the info on to Short. The radar station did pick up the attack and call it in, but they did not report the number of blips which would have told the recipient that there were a lot more planes than the scheduled B-17s. The telegram sent by Marshall did arrive too late. The incoming planes did pass a flying school plane. The signal “Tora! Tora! Tora!” was given by Fuchida to announce that they had achieved surprise. The fleet was taken totally by surprise but the Japanese did lose 29 planes. Taylor and Welch were accurately depicted, but they shot down 7 planes in two sorties. Doris (his real name) Miller did shoot down some planes. Hull did chew out Nomura, but the last part was not a declaration of war, it was an ultimatum. Nagumo did refuse to launch a third attack. He was overly cautious, but probably right as there were several reasons not to risk it. Overall, the movie is as accurate as anyone could wish.

100 BEST WAR MOVIES: #59. Breaker Morant (1980)

 

              “Breaker Morant” was released in 1980 and was the first of three films made in Australia that marked the arrival of Australian cinema as a force in war movies. The other two films were “Gallipolli” (1981) and “The Lighthorsemen” (1987). The film was directed by Bruce Beresford, has an all-Australian cast, and was shot in Australia. It is based on the play by the same name which tells the story of the court-martial of Harry “Breaker” Morant, a well known warrior/poet. It was a box office success in America and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

                The movie begins with text explaining that the war is set in the Boer War (1899-1902). The war was between the British Empire and the Boers (mostly Dutch settlers) in South Africa. The year is 1901 and the British occupied most of Boer territory, but is having trouble with the mobile Boer guerrillas. “The issues are complex, but basically the Boers wished to retain their independence from England”. A military band plays in a gazebo in Peitersburg in Transvaal, South Africa. The movie cuts to a court of inquiry involving three soldiers. One of the three, “Breaker” Morant ( recounts his military career to let the audience know he is a volunteer from Australia who was a distinguished officer. He takes full responsibility for his actions, but claims he was acting under orders. 

Morant, the roguish debt-escaper Lt. Peter Handcock (Bryan Brown), and the naively patriotic Lt. George Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) are on trial for executing prisoners and the assassination of a German missionary. They argue the killing of the prisoners was military policy (the rule of .303) and deny killing the German. Because of pressure from the German government and the press, Commander-in-Chief Lord Kitchener decides to sacrifice the trio. The court-martial is just a formality as the judges know their duty. A Maj. J.F. Thomas (Jack Thompson) is assigned as their defense attorney. He has not defended in a case like this, so the trio are bemused. He turns out to be a great lawyer, but will he be able to convince the judges that the men were just following orders. The movie intercuts flashbacks to the incidents and the witnesses in the trial. And an attack on the base by Boers adds some action and allows the three to show they are good soldiers.

ACTING:                      A

ACTION:                      N/A

ACCURACY:               A

PLOT:                           A

REALISM:                   A+

CINEMATOGRAPHY:      B

SCORE:                        none

 

BEST SCENE:  defending the jailhouse

BEST QUOTE:  Maj. Thomas’ summation:  "The fact of the matter is that war changes men's natures. The barbarities of war are seldom committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is that these horrors are committed by normal men in abnormal situations, situations in which the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed and have been replaced by a constant round of fear, and anger, blood, and death. Soldiers at war are not to be judged by civilian rules, as the prosecution is attempting to do, even though they commit acts which, calmly viewed afterwards, could only be seen as unchristian and brutal. And if, in every war, particularly guerilla war, all the men who committed reprisals were to be charged and tried as murderers, court-martials like this one would be in permanent session. Would they not? I say that we cannot hope to judge such matters unless we ourselves have been submitted to the same pressures, the same provocations as these men, whose actions are on trial."

CRITIQUE:  I’ll go out on a limb and proclaim that this is the best movie ever made about the Boer War. You get a feel for the war, although looking it up in an encyclopedia will help with the big picture. It also helps if you are familiar with the Vietnam War because you can transpose that war for much of ”Breaker Morant”. The closing speech by Thomas could have been given by Lt. Calley’s lawyer at his My Lai trial.

              In fact, the parallels to the My Lai Massacre (although probably unintentional) are eerie. Calley was also “just following orders”, but could not prove it. Many feel he was made a scape-goat by his superiors. (Like Witton, his sentence was also commuted due to public outrage). Few of Calley’s men refused to obey his orders even though they were obviously inhumane. At least the carbineers were not encumbered emotionally by the Nuremberg dictum that you must disobey unlawful orders to kill prisoners.

               The American boys, like Morant, had been changed by the war. If a sophisticated poet like Morant can be corrupted, what can be expected of a nineteen year old grunt? Morant was set off by his best friend’s death, Calley’s men were reacting to recent losses to booby traps. Although Calley’s unit was not the Green Berets (the Vietnam equivalent of the Carbineers), they were fighting the enemy the way he fought them. How many American policy makers in the Vietnam War were familiar with the Boer War? I get the impression America thinks it invented counter-insurgency. The Morant court-martial was known before this movie brought it to the general public. Was it studied at West Point? Did the British Empire look backwards before the Boer War? Were we the new British Empire in the sixties? Are we still?

                “Breaker Morant” is also one of the great anti-war movies. I recently got into a debate about whether all war movies are anti-war. Realistically, they should be, but actually a lot glorify war without showing any of the seamier side. The themes of prisoner abuse, never-ending guerrilla war, and scape-goating lower echelon soldiers resonate today. I sure hope this movie is being shown at West Point these days! It would not hurt for cadets to be told to focus on the “war corrupts good men” theme. Officers coming out of West Point are in many ways our “Breaker” Morants. It is the second best “soldiers on trial as scape-goats for command decisions” movie. After watching “Breaker Morant”, pair it off with its sister – “Paths of Glory”.

                 The film is an indictment of the British government. One theme is politics trumps fairness in war. The trio were sacrificed as pawns in a global chess game. The British Empire is on trial for its treatment of the Boers.

                  The only problem I have with the movie is if you really think about it, Morant was guilty of war crimes. Before the death of Hunt, he was clearly conflicted about the verbal orders from higher-up to kill prisoners. When he takes over, he did not have to obey those orders even if he thought they were official and it is clearly implied he became vengeance-minded. It is one of the strengths of the movie that even the death of the missionary seems like a railroaded charge when, of course, it was an egregious breech of the rules of war. How many in the audience see it as it is accurately depicted – an assassination of a priest for choosing the wrong side and for potentially informing on a war crime?

ACCURACY:  This all comes down to whether George Witton’s book Scapegoats of the Empire is truthful. Witton obviously had an axe to grind, but since the transcripts to the trial vanished, he’s our only real source for the trial. His story rings true and most historians have accepted it. The movie is remarkably faithful to the book which means that if you accept the authenticity of the book, the movie is one of the most accurate in war movie history.

                 The non-trial flashbacks are accurate. Hunt did die in a similar fashion, but he was buried before Morant could see the body. He certainly was told about the mutilations so his anger was certainly accurate. Ironically, historians have since determined that the mutilation was most likely done by black witch doctors! Another slight alteration from the facts was that Visser was not captured wearing Hunt’s jacket, but instead had some British kit in his possession. This makes the real “Breaker” Morant even more unjustified in executing Visser. The dawn attack on the fort did occur and the trio did perform brave enough to get them pardoned, under normal circumstances. The movie includes three of Morant’s poems as proof he was the real deal.

                   The filmmakers get the little details right. In one scene, a British soldier takes a bath in a wash-tub. Some of the British soldiers wear kilts. The Enfield rifles are accurately depicted. The Boers were famous for their sharp-shooting, although probably not as dead-eye as in this movie. Heck, even the British seldom miss.

CONCLUSION:  This is a great movie. The scenery is beautiful as Australia stands in for the unbroken horizons of the Transvaal. The acting is fantastic. In the courtroom scenes, watch the facial expressions of the actors. You can read a lot from those faces! Woodward is seething, Brown is roguish, Fitz-Gerald is naïve, and Thompson is outraged. Denny (the head of the tribunal) and Kitchener are appropriately hissable.

                Director Bruce Beresford made a film that is interesting to watch. He uses a stationary camera effectively. He also often has the actor off-center in the frame. He does not use a swelling soundtrack to tell us how we are supposed to feel.

                As a history lesson and a lesson in military ethics, the movie is valuable and should be viewed by a public that is at war in a war (Afghanistan) similar to the Boer War.  Clearly the film should be mandatory viewing for soldiers involved in a counter-insurgency situation and for the leaders who are fashioning that counter-insurgency policy.