Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969, France (9.0*)
Based on truth, as both novelist Joseph Kessel and director Jean-Pierre Melville were both in this army themselves. An excellent (and low-key) war film without the histrionics of most, Army in the Shadows takes the French men and women of the Resistance as its theme, at a point near the end of the war when the Resistance movement and Nazi intelligence about its work and staff are both firmly established.

This film will likely give most of the modern filmgoers a history lesson into the daily movements of the Resistance. Here we are shown the more mundane aspects of fighting a war from within, such as the ladies who operated safe houses for members on the run, as the Gestapo can torture enough members to gain intelligence on others. We also see aristocrats whose estates played host to small aircraft used to smuggle collaborators in and out of France. Unfortunately, we also witness the fate of those who crack under pressure or torture.

This a fascinating expose of the gruesome realities of heroism and the struggle against occupying armies, which of course also included moments of hopelessness and failure of nerve, as even the stout feel hidden eyes on every movement. Events test this hidden army, eventually each one finds themselves up against his or her personal limit of bravery and endurance as this struggle continued for years with no end in sight, at least during the time setting of this film.

Led by Simone Signoret in perhaps her best performance, and also starring Paul Meurisse and Jean-Pierre Cassel, this is one of the finest French films for craftmanship of acting and directing, and is Melville’s masterpiece. His crime films are excellent but none pack the emotional or historical weight of this story. You won’t find a better film about the Resistance in all of cinema.

The newly restored version on dvd was released in 2006 and won three new awards. The film has a rating of 8.2 at IMDB, which would place it in the top 250, but it doesn’t have enough ratings yet, with under 8,000 – so it’s rank in our compendium of polls would be much higher than the current 277, it would certainly be in the top 200. At Metacritics, it has a rating of 99, which would place it in the top 10 there, just after the 5-6 perfect 10’s, which include Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

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The Way Back

Peter Weir, 2010 (8.2*)
This incredible story begins with "In 1945, three men came out of the wilderness after a 4,000 mile walk from Siberia - this film is dedicated to the memory of these men."

Based on a memoir by Slavomir Rawicz called "The Long Walk", which depicted his escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4000-mile walk to freedom in India. This popular adventure became a bestseller, selling over 500,000 copies. Credited with inspiring explorers, one survival expert recreated the same hike himself and served as a technical advisor on this film. However, the BBC unearthed records in 2006 (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed he had been released by the USSR in 1942, while another former Polish soldier, Witold Glinski, claimed in 2009 that the book was really an account of his own escape. ("I walked 4000 miles!" - "No, I did!")

Whatever the facts, the film depicts a tribute to the survival instinct of man, a harrowing wilderness adventure trek across Siberia, Lake Baikal, Mongolia, Tibet, and finally emerging in the Indian Himilayas.

The story follows seven men who escape from a Siberian gulag consisting of foreign workers who were jailed by Stalin while working in Russia, and the typical assortment of lifetime criminals, led by Colin Farrell, who carries a knife, and a tattoo of Lenin and Stalin on his chest. He escapes with an international group led by American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), Pole Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Swede, Russian, and a Hungarian (or was it Romanian?) They are followed by a young Polish teen, who eventually joins the group, played by Saorise Ronan (who celebrated her 16th birthday on the set). Of her talents, Weir said "She was born with a particular acting talent that can't be learned".

The film perhaps loses it's emotional intensity along the way and becomes a slow walk to inevitability, so in that regard it's not as artistic as most of Weir's better efforts, such as Fearless, Witness, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. In spite of that, it's an adventure that needs to be told, and if true, one of the most amazing feats in human history. Similar stories have been documented as many prisoners spend years returning home after wars, many walking as far at 8-10,000 miles, so this story is not that unbelievable.

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Restrepo

Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, 2010 (9.0*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #21
Documentary that follows The Men of Battle Company 2nd of the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, in Afghanistan's deadly Korangal Valley, as they work out of firebase they call Outpost Restrepo, after a fallen comrade, medic Juan Restrepo.

If you're interested about how contemporary American soldiers look in daily combat, this is as good a film as you'll get, shot with superb cinematography, as risk of the filmmakers themselves being shot. (Director Tim Hetherington was in fact killed while filming in Libya in March of this year).

The film is simply a journal, following the platoon with little narrative structure other than their building OP Restrepo, the 15-man outpost on a hill overlooking the entire enemy valley - and a patrol into the civilian population called Operation Rock Avalanche, during which the troops came under heavy fire. Through face-to-face interviews with the soldiers, we can see what this has done to their psyches, and many of the soldiers are just out of high school.

4 awards, including Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, out of 12 nominations, including an Oscar® nomination for documentary (Inside Job won). Tim Hetherington also won a Pulitzer Prize for a 2007 photo of the soldiers resting at Restrepo.

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The Last of the Mohicans

Michael Mann, 1992 (8.2*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #20
Based on the James Fenimoore Cooper novel, this is the definitive version of this American classic.

Daniel-Day Lewis has the title role as Nathanial Poe, known as Hawkeye, who was adopted and raised as a Mohican. Native American Russell Means plays Chingachgook, the title character. Means was an Indian activist who was at the last clash with the FBI at Wounded Knee. Lewis does a pretty good job, but it seems they could have found a real Native American actor for this part as well.

The story is about British and French troops warring in colonial America, with various Native American tribes helping on either side. Hawkeye seems to have his own agenda, which largely involves a British officer's daughter, played by Madeleine Stowe. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and his son rescue Stowe and some others from renegade Hurons and return them safely to a fort.

Unfortunately the film is more about this romance than the actual nation-shaping war. Michael Mann always seems to have more of a 'tv look' to his films (he created Miami Vice), everything is a little too clean, too pretty, but he escapes that for the most part here with a feature film that looks like a big budget adventure. The cinematography and the music are superb.

This finally brought color to Cooper's work, the previous best versions were all in black and white. Some say this was the first chase story in literature. The climactic scenes on a mountain were shot in the beautiful area of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, one of the nicest parts of Appalachia.

An Oscar® winner for sound, a BAFTA for cinematography, two for actor Daniel-Day Lewis. Winner of 6 awards out of 16 nominations

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Empire of the Sun

Steven Spielberg, 1987 (8.3*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #19
Based on the autobiographical novel of British science fiction author J.G. Ballard, this is the wartime story of a British boy named Jim, played by a young Christian Bale, caught in Shanghai when the Japanese invade, eventually ending up in a Japanese POW camp, along with some other families and some American deserters, led by John Malkovich. The Americans befriend Jim and he becomes a flunkie, or employee, of them - really more like a hired servant - they are black marketeers and live better than other prisoners.

This has some unforgettable scenes - one a collection of British possessions rotting in a large outdoor field. My favorite is a flyer in a P-38 going past Jim on a watchtower in slow motion as Jim waves at the pilot in the middle of wartime action. Much of this actually happened to author Ballard when he was this age, he spent part of his youth growing up in a Japanese camp for captured Brits.

11 wins out of 24 nominations, incl. 6 Oscar nominations with no wins.. some wins were for cinematography, director, actor Christian Bale..

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Yves Simoneau, 2007 (8.6*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #18
Tells the true story of the U.S. war against the Lakota Souix tribe, from the book by Dee Brown. We see a lead up of escalating events until there is the banning of the harmless "Snake Dance", and an eventual historical event the U.S. would rather forget - I won't spoil it here for those who don't know or haven't seen the film.

This intermingles the stories of three historical characters: Charles Eastman, aka Ohiyesa, a college-educated Sioux doctor, 'living proof of the success of assimilation'; the proud Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and their sacred land - the gold-laden Black Hills of the Dakotas, promised to them in a treaty, to 'remain untouched'; and Senator Henry Dawes, who was one of the architects of the government policy on Indian affairs.

This film goes even further by showing how we indoctrinated Native American children into our society - by forcing them to drop their Indian names and choose a "Christian" one out of a big book of approved biblical names. They were forced to denounce their heritage and change names and learn Christianity or they were not given an education.

Stars Aiden Quinn, Anna Paquin, Fred D. Thompson, Chevez Ezaneh, and August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull.
won 22 awards out of 42 nominations, including 6 Emmys out of 17 nominations, including best tv movie.

Note: What most historical records won't say it that it was really just a matter of gold, which was discovered on sacred Souix grounds in the Black Hills, home of their sacred ancestors. The U.S. was in one of its regular bankruptcies or depressions, the government having just borrowed 500 million from J.P. Morgan in 1875 - suddenly there was easy gold in land they could just take back from the Souix, conveniently ignoring any prior treaties.

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Gallipoli

Peter Weir, Australia, 1981 (7.8*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #17
Two sprinters from Ausralia, played by Mel Gibson and Marc Lee, are sent to the Gallipoli campaign in World War One, as battlefield runners, the speedy who carry messages between military commanders in days before radios and easier communication.

If you don't know the history of this battle, I won't spoil it here, but the battle footage is well done, fairly realistic (and without CGI). The main themes of the film will hit you like a brick wall at the film's conclusion, and they are the universal themes of all wars: on the whole, they are a futile exercise, but in some individual cases, heroes may rise from among average men and attain at least a moment of timeless glory.

Winner of 9 awards, 20 nominations, including 8 Australia Film Institute awards (Film, Director, Actor for Gibson, Supporting actor for Bill Hunter, Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing) - it didn't win any international awards, just Australian.Dur

Another in a line of excellent Peter Weir films, which include Fearless (my favorite), Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Mosquito Coast, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

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Troy

Wolfgang Petersen, 2004 (7.7*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #16
Based on Homer's Iliad, this updating of the story of the Trojan war with Greece over the queen Helen has added CGI effects to finally look as if there are the reputed half a million Greek soldiers on the shores of Troy. (Well they say Helen "launched a thousand ships", so the total men involved may have been as small as 50,000).

Led by King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) the Greeks have united as one large army in order to invade Troy, and the most fierce and undefeatable of their warriors is of course Achilles, played by Brad Pitt. What sparked this war is that Paris (Orlando Bloom), has talked the Queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus, Helen (Diane Kruger), into going back to Troy with him to be his wife, in spite of protests from future king Hector (Eric Bana). Bana gives the films most complex and interesting performance and a voice of reason from within Troy, that one woman is not worth war for the thousands, while to Paris it's now a question of Trojan honor.

There's a lot of primitive war, much of it mano-a-mano, as the Greeks laid seige to Troy for a couple of years, having brought shiploads of food with them. The war/siege appears to have stalemated, so the Greeks eventually resorted to the infamous Trojan horse scheme.

This was a major blockbuster, like 50's era Hollywood, with an estimated 175 million budget, and grossing around 500 million worldwide. Winner of only 3 awards, with its only Oscar® nomination for costume design

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Kingdom of Heaven

Ridley Scott, 2005 (7.9*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #15
This is the time of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, a 200-yr period of clashes between Europe and the Middle East (ie, Islam) basically for control of Jerusalem, central to what both sides claim to be Holy Lands.

A blacksmith named Balian (Oliver Bloom) has lost his family and almost his faith as well, yet he still is somehow pulled by destiny. A great knight, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), a Crusader home from fighting, reveals himself as Balian's father, and takes him to the Holy Land to fight for Christianity there.

This is highlighted by some incredible special effects, never has medieval war looked so realistic, as huge balls of flaming oil [see below] are hurled by catapults that explode into airborn fire when they hit. Ridley Scott has used his technical expertise to create another real vision of an ancient world, like he did with Gladiator.

The positive here is there are no good vs evil people, just principled soldiers fighting honorably. Even though Bilian's story of personal journey seems to be sacrificed for the historical battle story, it's still a worthy film for giving us a look at what medieval war must have been.

© 20th Century Fox, for promotional purposes only

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Gettysburg

Ronald F. Maxwell, 1993 (8.1*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #14
Based on Michael Shaara's excellent novel The Killer Angels, about the leaders of the armies that met at Gettysburg. Actually filmed as a tv miniseries, this gives the three-day battle it's proper cinematic homage at nearly four hours. Even though made for tv, and it looks it at times, it's still probably the finest film treatment of Gettysburg to date.

In spite of some well-known actors in pivotal roles, which usually means "all-star ineffective cast", some manage to turn in remarkable performances, especially Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Chamberlain, the ex-teacher from Maine, who held Little Big Top in the battle's early fighting, thus saving the high ground for the Union cannons, and who was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and later served in Congress.

Martin Sheen turns in a credible performance as Gen. Robert E. Lee, with the proper accent, but without any of Lee's charisma. Some of the beards don't look quite real enough, like the one on Tom Berenger, but his performance is a good one so it's a trifling issue, just one of the many tipoffs of lower-budget, tv-level source of the production. Sam Elliott shines as Gen John Buford, the cavalry commander who initiates the battle, as does Richard Jordan (in one of his last roles) as Gen. Lewis Armistead, facing his best friend from earlier days in this battle. Stephen Lang perhaps chews the scenery a bit as Gen. George Pickett, forced by Lee to send his troops across exposed ground in the face of Union cannons.

It was perhaps a war deciding moment in just one huge battle, one that killed over 53,000 men, more than all of Vietnam. The film does a good job attempting this scale, using the help of a historical war re-enactment group. A war-weary Lee is shown saying "I leave this up to God now", which is often a big mistake, one that sacrifices your own war experience and rationale judgment, which had been used to Lee's advantage up to this point, offsetting the greater numbers and better equipment of the Union.

Gods and Generals
Michael Shaara's son Jeff finished his unfinished sequel novel "Gods and Generals" after Michael's death. It was also filmed, with Robert Duvall as Lee, a better choice than Sheen, and is about all the civil war years leading up to Gettysburg.

Bring the Jubilee
For those interested in Gettysburg, read Ward Moore's excellent alternate-history novel called "Bring the Jubilee", about a scholar who agrees to test a time travel machine if they'll send him back to the beginning of the famous battle, so he can see how the South won the battle, and thus the war, keeping the north and south as two separate nations and thus both second-level world powers, still dominated by European empires.

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The Longest Day

1962, bw (8.0*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #13
Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
Annakin did the British exteriors, Marton the American exteriors, Wicki the German episodes.

A journalistic, little embellished story of D-Day, beginning with the build up, and the delays caused by weather, the men anxiously rocking with the waves below decks, worried about how much German force will be waiting for them at Normandy. We proceed from waiting troops, to the overnight paratrooper drop that actually began the assault.

This all-star cast is more of a Hollywood who's who than a tight narrative ensemble, but by shooting in black and white the producers tried to give this filmed story of D-Day a documentary look and feel, so in that regard having stars in every part negates the effect, but it's still a rewarding war film overall. From Cornelius Ryan's best-seller, and it has that feel as well.

The cast has some of the biggest names available at the time: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Peter Lawford, Robert Ryan, Sal Mineo, Eddie Albert, Mel Ferrer, with Curt Jurgens and Gert Frobe in the German scenes. Most have little to do however, other than ask questions about maps, or bark out orders. The film is made by the special effects, as it truly does look like "every ship in the world" off the coast of Normany when the invasion begins, as one German observer radios to Berlin.

won 7 awards, 2 Oscars (cinematography, special effects) out of 13 nominations

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They Were Expendable

John Ford, 1945, bw (8.5*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon Film #12
(Robert Montgomery, co-dir, uncredited, who took over for Ford when he was injured in a fall)
This unglamorous story of average sailors doing their job at war is actually a touching and memorable war film. It's about the men in PT boats defending the Philippines. The film is written around the real life escape of General Douglas McArthur from Corregidor around the beginning of the Pacific War. Remaining historically accurate, the film documents the collapse of American-Filipino resistance in 1942.

John Wayne plays Rusty, a cynical officer unhappy being on PT boats, he wants a bigger, more important station, so in this film Wayne is not the big hero in a famous battle at all, making it more realistic than most of his roles, and quite a satisfying performance as a result. Robert Montgomery as the squadron commander is understated and moving, one of his best performances as well.

The film is full of memorable war images: a Japanese air strike at Subic Bay, the scenes of McArthur's escape, the defeated American army retreating on Mindanao. This is not a heavy action war film, but has a tranquil pace with time for other real life moments. Perhaps the finest of John Ford's war films.

Excellent supporting cast includes Ward Bond, Donna Reed, Jack Holt, Leon Ames. The sound and special effects received Oscar® nominations.

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Glory

Edward Zwick, 1989 (8.4*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-Thon Film #11
A pretty realistic civil war film with some real battle action, which places this in a handful of films that actually combined the two. This tells the true story of the all-black army unit that fought for the Union in the Civil War, led by white officer (naturally) Robert Gould Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick, who first has to fight prejudice within his own army.

The story follows the 54th Massachusetts from it's initial days until their first major action in the war in 1963. Denzel Washington won his first Oscar® this, for supporting actor, as a cynical yet heroic soldier. Morgan Freeman also has a supporting part. James Horner contributed a nice music score, as usual.

Even though most characters in the film were composites except for Shaw, Glory was based on a screenplay written by American screenwriter Kevin Jarre, which was based on two books:
(1) One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment (1989) by Peter Burchard, a novel that itself was based on letters written by Robert Gould Shaw, the colonel in command of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which entered the American Civil War in 1863
(2) Lay This Laurel (1973), a photographic tribute to the Civil War sculpture of Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Winner of 12 awards out of 19 nominations, and three Oscars®: sound, cinematography, supporting actor.

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The Killing Fields

Roland Joffe, 1984 (8.2*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #10
A western journalist, Sam Waterston, is trapped in Cambodia as the Vietnam war is winding down, but as Pol Pot's regime is beginning to massacre two million civilians in a 'cleansing' of that nations undesirables. He struggles to get out himself but will also not abandon his assistant and friend from Cambodia. This closely mirrored the story of co-star Haing S. Ngor, who was awarded with an Oscar® for basically playing his own life out onscreen.

This is a true story written by a journalist, so the effort was made to film this in a journalistic style. This is not for the squeamish, as rather than soldiers, innocent civilians are often the target of this war. This makes a nice companion piece with Oliver Stone's Vietnam films, Platoon, and Heaven and Earth.

winner of 26 awards out of 44 nominations, including 3 Oscars® for supporting actor (Ngor), cinematography, editing. The film lost best picture to Amadeus that year.

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The Thin Red Line

Terrence Malick, 1998 (8.0*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #9
Looks like director Malick tried to make another great war film from fiction, using another James Jones novel, author of From Here to Eternity. Unfortunately the film has little dramatic impact, especially for a major World War II battle, in this case Guadalcanal, a lengthy battle due to the rugged terrain, and size of the island. It does, however, concentrate on some weighty philosophical issues, mainly why has the evil of war and men killing each crept into the natural world, and introduced horror into what could be a paradise.

Jim Caviezel stars as a man who'd rather retire on a nearby island with natives than commit any more to the carnage of the war in the Pacific. Some of the opening scenes of this are among the more beautiful in cinema, an idyllic tropical paradise, untouched by modern man or war. All too soon for Caviezel, he's soon plunged back into the reality of war against dug-in Japanese troops who'll fight to the end without surrender.
Commanding officer Nick Nolte, who unfortunately growls all his lines, is an unsympathetic, result-oriented, no holds barred type of commander more than willing to send unnecessary men to death to make himself look good, as he feels "passed over" by the bureaucracy and is hoping to rise from colonel to general at any cost.

Whit, played by Jim Caviezel, would rather live in

a primitive paradise than face the modern world of war

This brings all serious questions of war to the surface, namely where does one draw the line between bravery and suicide? At what price are a few hundred yards of earth, all any of this ever amounts to on a microcosmic scale. How much impact can one man really have, as Sean Penn's veteran sergeant character. character asks Jim Caviezel.

Any Malick film is a rarity worth seeing, this may not be his best, but it's still another very good war film, just perhaps a little overlong, yet with a lyrical poetry missing in most films like this one. It's definitely not a gung-ho, flag-waving type of hero worship war film. Still, it won 18 awards out of 44 nominations, but won no Oscars out of seven nominations, which included best picture, director, editing, cinematography, sound, music, screenplay - so you can tell it was another superbly crafted film, hence it's inclusion here.

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The English Patient

Anthony Minghella, 1996 (8.8*)
Best Picture (AA)
Best Picture (BAA)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #8
A man is badly burned in a military hospital, and being taken care of by a beautiful young nurse, Juliette Binoche in an Oscar®-winning performance. We are told the story of Count Almásy in flashbacks from the present, a Hungarian mapmaker for the Royal Geographical Society, in their employ to chart the vast Saharan desert. He becomes involved in a tale of romance and intrigue, as he gets involved in an adulterous affair with Kirsten Scott Thomas with the backdrop of war looming, which leads to his present situation in the hospital. Colin Firth ably plays her cheated husband.

One of the more celebrated romances ever, it's in the awards realm of Gone With the Wind, twice as many as Casablanca. However, the two leads in this film, Ralph Fiennes and Kirsten Scott-Thomas, aren't quite superstar caliber yet nevertheless turn in career-best performances. The film is capably carried by the superb craftmanship of all the other arts, cinematography, sound, and editing in particular.

Some may find this a little soapy, because it is ultimately two romances, the Count's tale, and Binoche's nurse and a handsome, young Indian bomb squad officer, played by Naveen Andrews, which actually seems more real than the Count's romance, which may be fable. It's heavier on character and relationship development, so it will be slow for some wanting an action war film; it's not one of those, but it does have all the elements of classic war adventure as well. It's a bit reminiscent of David Lean, which is a good thing.

50 awards, including 9 Oscars® (picture, director), and 5 Baftas (best film) - out of 87 nominations.

Interesting that it's Oscar® losses were lead actor (Fiennes, lost to Geoffrey Rush for Shine), actress (Thomas, who lost to Frances McDormand for Fargo), and screenplay.

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Letters From Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood, 2006 (8.4*)
[in Japanese w. subtitles]
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #7
Using letters sent home to Japan during World War Two, Clint Eastwood has constructed the Japanese side of the battle for Iwo Jima island. This was filmed simultaneously with his English-language The Flags of Our Fathers, which followed the lives of some of those made famouse by the raising of the flag in that famous photo and now a statue at Arlington, so the two make a natural double-feature together.

This is all in Japanese with subtitles, as we are given excerpts of the soldiers' letters and that is mixed with live action. This presents a harrowing tale of war, in a stronghold that had miles of tunnels dug by the troops over time, so they were able to hold out a long time and move around underground, unseen on top. They were forced to live like feral animals, and vowed to fight to the death, surrender is a dishonor.

This has some amazing affects, the invasion of occupied Iwo Jima by the navy and marines, footage (obviously CGI effects) that was used in each film. Of the two, I found Letters to be the more intense, as it all takes place on the island, and mostly during the battle itself, while Flags followed the soldiers around in the state promoting war bonds long after their fighting was done.

No. 237 on the IMDB 250, winner of 17 awards

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Coming Home

Hal Ashby, 1975 (8.1*)
Memorial Day War-athon #6
A powerful anti-war film about Vietnam vets coming home to re-establish their lives which are forever changed by the war. Jane Fonda and Jon Voight each won acting Oscars® as two people who fall in love while fighting for the rights of returning war vets. He's now a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair, which he uses in his anti-war speeches. Voight also won actor at Cannes, and a Golden Globe for his performance (six awards in all).

Bruce Dern, also an Oscar®-nominee, is unfortunately the loser in this triangle, as it's his wife, Fonda, that falls in love with another man while he's still serving in Vietnam. He's still a more traditional patriot, while Fonda has moved on to the anti-war side as the war has continued without an end in sight.

This had no combat scenes so it wasn't as powerful as some other Vietnam-era films like The Deer Hunter and Platoon, (both Oscar® winners for best picture) yet it provided an equally powerful anti-war statement, about life from peacetime, from the civilian side, and the lifelong effects the war will have on some participants.

Winner of 3 Oscars® (actor, actress, screenplay directly for the screen), and 13 awards overall

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The Night Porter

Liliani Cavani, Italy, 1974 (8.3*)
Il portiere di notte
[in English]
Memorial Day War-a-thon #5

This film deals with the dark side of human sexuality, one which grew out of a twisted relationship during World War II, so it's also a metaphor for the dark side of society itself. People may appear normal on the outside, but..

Charlotte Rampling plays Lucia, a concentration camp survivor who, twelve years later and now married to a famous orchestra conductor, meets her former captor Maximilian by chance, when they check into a Viennese hotel he is the night porter there. Dirk Bogarde turns in one of his most riveting performances as the night clerk, a man nonchalant and passionless on the outside, but who releases a torrent of sadomasochistic eroticicm when alone with Charlotte, as she is all too willing to continue what was started in the camp, when she was the teenage victim of s/m sex experiments with Bogarde. Apparently her present life, even though affluent and safe, isn't as passionate nor as fulfilling as her prior one.

This is the most interesting aspect of the story, the long term psychological ramifications of those surviving traumatic experiences, and those who become bonded to their captors. In one regard, since this relationship became necessary for Maximilian as well, it kept Lucia alive through the war, so he saved her life, even if as his sex slave. Bogarde still meets with other former camp officers in the present day, to discuss surviving in the present society and remaining anonymous, so their shared memories remain alive through the group.

Caviani did a good job of making all this complexity understandable, if not sympathetic. The films weakness is not making us care what happens to these characters; they seem self-absorbed and uninterested in normal society, likely as a result of surviving the camp. The films strong point is that it shows how dysfunctional society itself can be in creating people like this, how it's possible for personal demons to prevent people from change, and how their unchecked obsessions can consume the soul.

Some dismissed this as sensationalism, I found it a chilling expose of the dark side of the Nazi psyche, the need to control people totally, only deriving pleasure from inflicting pain.This film made Rampling an international star, but it wasn't until the recent Under the Sand that she lived up to her dramatic potential. In this film, a woman's longtime husband swims in the ocean while she naps on the beach, and after awakening finds that her husband has disappeared.

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Breaker Morant

Bruce Beresford, Australia, 1980 (8.8*)
Memorial Day War-athon #2
This the story of a war-time court martial, and is based on true events during the closing stages of the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The officers are members of a mostly Australian unit called the Bushveldt Carbineers, created to fight the Boer commandos by employing their own tactics against them.

The charge is that the three men involved here committed murder by executing captured Boers, and also perhaps executed a civilian non-combatant. Their defense is that they were acting in accordance with standing orders, because the operational nature of the Carbineers would be hampered by having to keep prisoners under guard. Also, anyone escaping would be able to give their location and other information. Naturally, these are verbal orders only, so it's all based on heresay.

The British command sees the incident as a chance to give morale to the Boer side, embarassing their side, so command clearly wishes to portray the three protagonists as rogue elements and sacrifice them for political expediency. Similar to Kubricks Paths of Glory, this film examines the military practice of high command often sacrificing subordinates to cover for their own failures and indiscretions, in this case violating international accords by executing prisoners of war. Through the trial, we get the see the story told as flashbacks during witness testimony.

The overall quality of this film is impeccable, as is the cast - five were nominated for Australian Film Institute (AFI, equivalent of our academy awards) awards for acting: Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown won (for lead and supporting respectively), also nominated were Edward Woodward, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, and Charles 'Bud' Tingwell.

Winner of 12 awards, including 10 AFI awards, it's only 3 AFI losses were to other actors in the same film. This is both a powerful war film and a gripping legal film with a courtroom trial.

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