I watched this film today on the More 4 Channel. This channel has to its credit been showing various films recently from the 40s and 50s and this week it seems to be concentrating on the lesser known war films.
This film interested me because I lived as a child through World War II and its effects are still with us. I have seen Claudette Colbert in other films - two with John Wayne - which were very enjoyable comedies -and she is a sensitive actress and quite watchable.
This portrayal of life in a Japanese concentration camp was lacking the kind of realism seen in the film, A town like Alice.
No doubt in the 1950s - pre-Psycho, Edward Scissorhands, and, The Exorcist, it would have been contrary to good public taste and the then filmographic aesthetic to have portrayed the violence and degradation more graphically. Nevertheless, the harshness of the captors was presented at times forcibly even if in somewhat muted tones.
What may one ask was the relevance of the relationship between the Japanese Colonel and Mrs Keith? Was this an attempt at 'realpolitik' - to give substance and support to the rehabilitation of the excruciatingly cruel Japanese by the USA in Japan in the post war reconstruction period, by showing that not all the Japanese were totally barbaric?
Nothing is shown as to why the Japanese soldiers are so brutal nor why everyone has to bow to them. The Japanese soldiers were themselves brutalised during their training and could be beaten for minor infringements - harsh and brutal treatment being the norm for them in training meant that they would do the same to prisoners.
It seems inconceivable that towards the middle of the 20th Century that a nation could believe that its emperor was a God. How could this be?
So this film was not put in its full historical context. Nothing was shown also of what was happening outside the confines of the Camp. And, one had nothing to give one a sense of time historically - no information for example, the outcome of the Battle of Midway, from the happenings elsewhere in this theatre of war, was admitted. Only towards the very end does the Japanese Colonel refer to his wife and children's being killed in Hiroshima, and the atom bomb is not mentioned. Was this also for political reasons?
Had I not been interested in learning something more about the history of this period by watching the film, I would have switched to another channel as it was hardly, 'gripping stuff' - and it lacked excitement.
It is not the sort of film I would watch again unless compelled to as part of a film studies course. I would, however, like to see more films in which Claudette Colbert acted.
B. Michael James 19th July 2006
This film interested me because I lived as a child through World War II and its effects are still with us. I have seen Claudette Colbert in other films - two with John Wayne - which were very enjoyable comedies -and she is a sensitive actress and quite watchable.
This portrayal of life in a Japanese concentration camp was lacking the kind of realism seen in the film, A town like Alice.
No doubt in the 1950s - pre-Psycho, Edward Scissorhands, and, The Exorcist, it would have been contrary to good public taste and the then filmographic aesthetic to have portrayed the violence and degradation more graphically. Nevertheless, the harshness of the captors was presented at times forcibly even if in somewhat muted tones.
What may one ask was the relevance of the relationship between the Japanese Colonel and Mrs Keith? Was this an attempt at 'realpolitik' - to give substance and support to the rehabilitation of the excruciatingly cruel Japanese by the USA in Japan in the post war reconstruction period, by showing that not all the Japanese were totally barbaric?
Nothing is shown as to why the Japanese soldiers are so brutal nor why everyone has to bow to them. The Japanese soldiers were themselves brutalised during their training and could be beaten for minor infringements - harsh and brutal treatment being the norm for them in training meant that they would do the same to prisoners.
It seems inconceivable that towards the middle of the 20th Century that a nation could believe that its emperor was a God. How could this be?
So this film was not put in its full historical context. Nothing was shown also of what was happening outside the confines of the Camp. And, one had nothing to give one a sense of time historically - no information for example, the outcome of the Battle of Midway, from the happenings elsewhere in this theatre of war, was admitted. Only towards the very end does the Japanese Colonel refer to his wife and children's being killed in Hiroshima, and the atom bomb is not mentioned. Was this also for political reasons?
Had I not been interested in learning something more about the history of this period by watching the film, I would have switched to another channel as it was hardly, 'gripping stuff' - and it lacked excitement.
It is not the sort of film I would watch again unless compelled to as part of a film studies course. I would, however, like to see more films in which Claudette Colbert acted.
B. Michael James 19th July 2006