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 100/442nd
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
100/442nd. 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.
