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.

CONSENSUS #41. Guns of Navarone (1961)

SYNOPSIS:  “The Guns of Navarone” is a WWII action/adventure based on the novel by Alistair MacLean.  A commando team of various talents is sent to a German controlled island to destroy two enormous artillery pieces that control the nearby sea and would prevent a British fleet from passing by.  They have to overcome obstacles like climbing a cliff in a rainstorm, a traitor in their midst, and getting into the well-defended emplacement.  The cast is led by Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, and Anthony Quayle.

BACKSTORY:  “The Guns of Navarone” was released in 1961 and was the top box office attraction of that year. It is based on the popular novel (1957) by Alistair MacLean, although the characters underwent major changes by screenwriter Carl Foreman ( for instance, there are no major female characters in the book ). At $6 million, the film was one of the most expensive up to that time. It paid off as the movie was a smash hit and critically acclaimed. It served as a template for the James Bond series with its mixture of action, characters, and exotic locale. It is often linked with similar movies from that time period, specifically with “Bridge on the River Kwai”, “The Longest Day”, and “The Great Escape”. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards and won for Best Special Effects. It was awarded the Golden Globe for Drama. One of the Oscar nods went to Foreman for his first credited screenplay since being blacklisted as a Communist. The movie was filmed mostly on the island of Rhodes which hosted an all-star cast. One of whom, David Niven, almost died during filming because of immersion in a pool of water for the explosives on the elevator shaft scene.

TRIVIA:  Wikipedia, imdb, TCM, Cinema Retro

1.  The original director was Alexander MacKendrick.  He was fired (officially he was ill) by producer Carl Foreman for creative differences.  Foreman had set himself up as second unit director and was very protective of his script.  He also felt MacKendrick was not up to his standards.  Foreman also found fault with the script written by thriller writer Eric Ambler and decided to write it himself.  Foreman, a communist sympathizer, had been blacklisted in the U.S. during the Korean War.  Although he had dropped out of the Communist Party ten years earlier, he refused to name names before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. After finishing “High Noon”, he had relocated to England.

2.  Director J. Lee Thompson had had a great success with “Ice Cold in Alex”.  He later went on to direct “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home”.  He was known for frequent rehearsing.  The movie uses a lot of painted mattes for effects and rear projection.  Most of the shots of the boat are models.  The cliff scene was done on the floor of the studio with the actors lying down for the scaling.

3.  The Greek government provided a thousand troops, dozens of vehicles, and a number of ships.  Foreman was given access to all historical sites.  The cooperation soured after Thompson accidentally sank the ship in the scene where their boat is stopped by a German patrol ship.  Members of the royal family appear in the wedding banquet scene.

4.  The shipwreck scene was done in the studio tank using airplane engines that had water from fire hoses sprayed into them.  It took 10 days.  The tidal wave was an effect.  Peck suffered a deep gash on his head and was nearly crushed by the hydraulics.  Quinn injured his back.  Niven reopened an old war wound.  Darren nearly drowned.

5.  Peck was chosen after William Holden asked for too much and did not want to star because he felt the movie was too much like “Bridge on the River Kwai”.  Peck liked the anti-war theme because he was a confirmed pacifist who had not supported U.S. intervention in WWII until Operation Barbarossa.  He refused to do an English accent so the character was changed to American. He later admitted he was miscast.  His German was dubbed.  He was hoping to revive a career that was beginning to skid.

6.  Anthony Quinn loved the Rhodes location shoot so much he bought land in the area that is still called Anthony Quin Bay.  He and Peck did not get along at first, but bonded over chess (which Quinn was very good at).  He angered the cast by wearing the vibrant red t-shirt under his uniform and then using its uncovering to steal eyeballs in the climactic scenes.

7.  David Niven felt his role was underwritten and pouted a bit about it.  This movie was the only one that the anti-smoking Brit smoked in. Niven returned to the British Army at the start of the war.  He was the only British actor to return to serve in the war.  He was assigned to a commando unit, but did not like to talk about his experiences.  He suffered a serious viral infection shooting the rigging the rigging the elevator scene because the water was polluted.  He came close to dying and was hospitalized for several weeks.  The movie was in jeopardy until he returned.

8.  Anthony Quayle was a Major organizing guerrilla forces in Albania during WWII.

9.  Bobby Darren was hoping to change his teen idol image, but his next movie was the sequel to “Gidget” in which he played Moondoggie.  He had only ten lines of dialogue.

10.  Stanley Baker was a big star in England, but was not high on the movie’s totem pole.  He was bitter throughout the filming.

11.  Gia Scala (Anna) was a head-case and difficult to work with (she later committed suicide).  She was upset with director Thompson for having her character with short hair.  When given the opportunity to cut Foreman’s hair, she gouged the back of it.

 12.  Dimitri Tiomkin got a record $50,000 and a percent of the profits.  The score was the longest ever at 147 minutes.

13.  The guns were built by an armaments company and were functional.  The guns were based on Big Bertha.  The guns set was the largest ever built. It took five months.  It was three stories high and had and working elevator.

14.  The number of times Barnsby (Richard Harris) says “bloody” in his rant about aerial bombing of the guns – 9.  The British censor insisted it be redubbed “ruddy” for British prints.

 15.  *** Spoiler Alert:  Foreman made substantial changes to the novel.  He added the Pappadimos character.  He added the leadership dysfunction between Mallory and Miller.  He added the revenge issue for Stavros with regard to Mallory.  He added Stavros saving Mallory on the cliff.  He built up the scopolamine angle.  Mallory kills the traitor.  He added the wedding scene.  There was no well of water at the bottom of the elevator in the book.  (I bet Niven wished he had not added that!)  He made the story more anti-war.

Belle and Blade  =  2.0

Brassey’s              =  4.0

Video Hound       =  4.4

War Movies         =  5.0

Military History  =  #93

Channel 4             =  #14

Film Site                =  no

101 War Movies  =  yes

Rotten Tomatoes  =  no 

OPINION:  Although considered one of the great manly films, “Guns” is probably a bit overrated. It has some ridiculous moments like the escape from the German arresters and Pappidamos’ machine gun duel. Not to mention squeezing a song into a war movie! It also has several standard movie clichés like Stavros finding a woman in the end to restart his life. The Germans are depicted as not so much evil as stupid. The movie is also a little slow and talkie at times. When compared to a similar MacLean inspired movie, “Where Eagles Dare” (which did not make the list), it comes up short in almost every way.  However, as an example of an old school action movie set in war, it is pretty good. It has the old-fashioned soundtrack, stellar acting, and the twist of who the traitor is. It is rousing entertainment, but a bit staid.

DANGER CLOSE (2019)

                        “Danger Close:  The Battle of Long Tan” is an Australian movie about the most famous military action involving the Australian army in the Vietnam War.  It was directed by Kriv Stenders. For those of you waiting for movies like “Pegasus Bridge”, don’t give up hope.  This movie started pre-production in 2008, the screenplay was finished in 2014, and the movie was not released until 2019!  It took so long that Sam Worthington was supposed to star.  The exteriors were shot in Australia.  Veterans were used as extras.  The weapons were authentic with most of the soldiers armed with the L1A1 SLR.  One of the RAAF UH-18 Hueys was actually used in the battle.

                        A title card tells us that Australia supported American forces in a civil war between North and South Vietnam.  The soldiers were a mix of conscripts and volunteers.  Their average age was 20 and inexperienced.  This is a pure and simple battle movie.  It jumps right in on the eve of the battle.  An Australian base comes under mortar fire during the night of August 17, 1966.  A lot of the blokes are shirtless, ladies.  Some are drinking Fosters while on guard duty, guys.  In a disappointing cinematic development, their battery knocks out the enemy mortar in one shot.  Great shooting, mates!   The next day, Bravo Company is sent to make contact in a rubber plantation.  In a nod to the attitude of the Australians, it will be called Operation Vendetta.   Maj. Smith (Travis Fimmel – Ragnar of “Vikings”) argues for his Delta Company, but in a scene that establishes the command dysfunction theme, Lt. Col. Townsend shoots him down.  Later, Smith (a veteran of the counterinsurgency in Malaysia) asks for transfer to a fighting unit which will respect his warrior abilities.  Smith has a reputation as a hard-ass who grates on his superiors and is unpopular with his men.  He is in need of a respect-earning arc.  Sgt. Buick (Luke Bracey) asks him if he is pushing the men too hard.  Somebody had to.  So far, the movie has touched on some time-honored clichés.  Let’s hope the combat is more original. 

                        The day of the battle, the base is visited by entertainers that include Little Pattie, a pop star.  Delta Company won’t be enjoying her big hit “He’s My Blonde Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy”.  Smith is sent to relieve Bravo.  He briefs the officers.  Any questions.  Hands raise.  He ignores them.  Delta saunters into the rubber plantation and walks into an ambush by a large enemy unit.  The three platoons will each have to deal with human waves, culminating in a last stand.  Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Lt. Col. Townsend and Brig. Jackson (Richard Roxburgh) disagree over how to avoid disaster.

                       “Danger Close” is combat porn at its finest.  And there is a very high percentage of it. Director Kriv Stenders has a flair for action.  He uses all the tools of cinematography and effects. Slo-mo, super slo-mo, explosions, stunt men jumping on trampolines after explosions, following shells to their fiery destination, blood splattering on the camera lens, etc.  It has some vibrant bells and whistles like flame coming out of howitzer barrels.  Tracers whizz and wounds are graphic.  The combat most resembles “We Were Soldiers”, as does the battle itself.  Where they differ is “Danger Close” does not bother with the build-up.  It is only concerned with the battle, not the unit.  Obviously, there are no home front scenes, but there is some character development of the common soldiers.  Unfortunately, these men are stereotypical.  Lt. Sharp is the “cocky little prick”.  Pvt. Large is the screw-up who will be annealed by combat.  Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of talking about his upcoming wedding.   Otherwise, the deaths are refreshingly random, as in war.  The acting is good with Fimmel dominating.  He has a lot of charisma and was a good choice for Smith.  He simmers rather than blusters as the rogue warrior.

                        The greatest strength of the movie is its accuracy.  As you will see below in my accuracy section, it has a high degree of fidelity to the truth.  It gets many small details right, like the visit form Little Pattie.  It does not enhance the action and most importantly, it does not substitute a feel-good ending for reality like “We Were Soldiers” did.  The movie does not take a stand on the war.  It is more interested in lauding the soldiers as opposed to high command.  The movie is a tribute to the Australian effort in the war and does not question it.  You don’t have to be Australian to enjoy it.  You just have to be a war movie fan.  It could possibly be the best war movie of 2019.  If you don’t count “1917” as a 2019 movie.

GRADE  =  A

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The base was bombarded the night before, but it was much more extensive and the counter-battery fire was 240 rounds, not one.  Company B  was understrength, plus many of its men were due for leave the next day.  It was sent to find the mortars.  Most of the infantry did carry L1A1 SLR’s.   Little Pattie and Col Joye and the Joy Boys were giving a concert when the battle began. Bravo Company did locate some mortar positions, but did not encounter any enemy.  Delta was sent to relieve Bravo. Smith had 108 men.  He and Townsend were not told that there was a VC battalion in the area.  Smith claimed that Brigadier Jackson knew of the enemy force and withheld the intelligence.  They left with the standard ammunition for a patrol – 60 rounds per man.  Some members of 11^th Platoon, led by Sgt. Buick did run into 6-8 VC crossing their path.  Buick fired, hitting one, and the others scattered.  The platoon pursued.  The cabin was a rubber tapper’s cabin.  Some grenades were found, but nothing else.  11 Platoon was attacked and pinned down.     The enemy had heavy machine guns and mortars.  Sharp was rising up to see where the artillery was hitting when he was killed.  Buick took over.  The radio was disabled after Buick took over.  The enemy did use bugles to signal attacks. Artillery fire was called in to aid 11^th Platoon.  Smith had a forward observer, Capt. Maurice Stanley, who coordinated the fire.  Eventually, all 24 guns of the 1^st Field Artillery were used, plus an American battery. The movie greatly downplays the role the artillery played in keeping the enemy at bay.  10 Platoon did attempt to reach 11, but it was pinned down. On the way, 10^th ran into an enemy unit preparing to attack 11.  It broke up the attack, but was soon pinned down.  F-4s were called in but the rain and low clouds kept the Phantoms from seeing the smoke.  They had to drop their napalm away from the trapped platoons. Buick did repair the radio and contacted Stanley demanding artillery fire on his position due to the dire situation and their running out of ammunition, but Stanley refused and instead walked the fire in close.  The artillery hit an assault group.  The rain was harder than in the movie and continued for the rest of the battle.  Lt. Sabben (not Large) led the section of 11  to save 12 platoon.  They reached the cabin, but were pinned down.   Smith did send a radioman to 10 because their radio is out.  He did kill two enemy on the way.    The  chopper pilots did not defy orders to bring ammunition.  Their commander was reluctant to send them, but relented.  They did drop the crates from above.   Sabben (not Buick) popped the smoke.  It did guide the remainder of 11 in.  Only 13 of the 28 came in. Jackson did fear an attack on the base and was reluctant to reduce the defenders.  100 men from Company A were sent in 10 APCs under the command of Lt. Roberts.  Their experience was accurately depicted in the film.  He did send two APCs back for Townsend, but refused to wait.  They crashed into the flank of an enemy unit and one of the APC commanders was killed as his APC did not have a gun shield.  The company did make a last stand in a depression. Kirby did  run out to take out a machine gun.  The artillery fire was much more consistent than in the movie.  3,500 rounds were fired.  The enemy attacks were not as suicidal as the movie depicts.  The enemy tactic was to get through the artillery kill zone as quickly as possible and engage from short range.  Large’s death was similar to as in the movie.   With ammo having run out, Smith did  prepare for the last attack.  The APCs did arrive just in the nick of time.    The movie accurately proclaims that 18 Australians were killed. (11 of the dead were draftees.)  As far as the claim that 245 enemy were killed.  This is the official total that was told to the press.  Many have questioned it, including Smith.  It might have been as low as 50.  The VC claimed 700 dead Australians.

Son of Saul (2015)

                “Son of Saul” is an addition to the Holocaust subgenre of war movies.  You may be wondering what more can be done with this prolific subgenre, but “Son of Saul” proves there is still life left in Holocaust films.  It is a Hungarian film by Laszlo Nemes, who co-wrote the screenplay.  Although the movie is fictional, he did extensive research, especially from “The Scrolls of Auschwitz”.  That work is the first person accounts of Sonderkommandos.  He also had Holocaust experts as technical advisers.  The movie was lauded by Elie Weisel and Claude Lanzmann, the director of “Shoah”.  The movie was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes and won for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.  It also won the Golden Globe.

                The movie opens with a definition for “Sonderkommando” for those who aren’t familiar with this Holocaust term.  Or for those who have not seen “The Grey Zone”.  Each death camp had these units which consisted of male prisoners who were allowed to live a little longer and given preferential treatment in exchange for working the gas chambers.  The movie focuses on one of them, Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig).  He is on screen almost all the time.  The movie is very intimate.  The movie opens with a sensory-assaulting scene of the Jews being loaded onto a train.  Not original, but in this case the cinematography is disconcertingly out of focus.  The blurriness is balanced by a cacophony of sounds realistic to the scene.  A baby cries, a dog barks, the train lets out steam, there is a band playing.  This style continues into the gas chamber.  We have to use sounds to fill in for what is not shown.  This movie expects a lot from its viewers.  Saul’s job is to check the corpses for valuables, remove the bodies, and then clean the floor.  He is dispassionate about it. He has stowed away his humanity, but then it returns when he witnesses a Nazi doctor suffocating a young boy who had miraculously survived the gas.  Saul makes it his mission to work around the system to give the child a decent burial.  This will require a rabbi.  Saul takes incredible chances and goes through a series of adventures to try to achieve his goal.  His quest for a rabbi results in his involvement with shoveling ashes into the local river and the disposal of a shipment of Jews via a pit.  This scene in particular is one of the most realistically horrific in Holocaust film history.  The sounds and glimpses of sights set it apart.  While he is on his quest,  Saul is also caught up in a rebellion led by the Sonderkommandos.

                “Son of Saul” is mesmerizing tour de force of cinematography and sound.  The sound design took five months and included eight different languages.  Cinematographer Matyas Erdely mixes shallow focus with deep focus and liberal use of out of focus.  The gas chamber scene features a two minute take followed by a three minute one.  There are a lot of close-ups, especially of Saul.  Rohrig is great with facial expressions.  It was his feature film debut and he dominates.  He should have been nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards.  His Saul is no saint.  You have to wonder if his obsession is detrimental to the greater good.  No other character makes much of an impression although there are some interesting people that Saul encounters.  The movie has no villain.  The Holocaust is the villain.  Saul is put in a Hell on Earth and fights it as best he can.  Through Saul we see some aspects of the Holocaust that are rarely seen in a Holocaust movie.  However, when it comes to the two historical incidents covered in the film  (the finding of a live child in the gas chamber and the rebellion of the Sonderkommandos), the movie does not instruct much.  It uses those true events to tell the story of the fictional Saul.  The movie is so focused on him that it is hard to figure out what the bigger picture is.  For that reason, the movie needs to be paired with “The Grey Zone”.  Don’t watch one without seeing the other.  Watch them back to back if you want to overdose on depressing.

                “Son of Saul” falls just short of being a great movie.  It does have some predictability in its unique plot.  Saul is unrealistically lucky and his quest seems too easy at times.  It loses some credibility towards the end.  However, those are minor quibbles for a movie that is a must-see.

GRADE  =  A