BEST IN GENRE (War): The “Other Ones”

by Andrew Bowcock

As we began to gather everybody’s top 10 lists, we quickly realized we were running into a few snags based on how people define a “war film” (and predicted this would become a bigger problem for other genres if we didn’t try to lay out certain criteria).  Since we wanted to give the greatest films their proper due, we just wanted to make sure everybody was agreed on what qualified itself as being in the war genre, so top quality films wouldn’t get excluded simply based on relative opinion of their genre validity.  Our stipulations broke down into semantics as we inevitably had to make some compromises, but I’ll give you an idea of a few of the examples:

Historical Epics. Spartacus, Braveheart, and Ran are all films which involve significant historical wars, but are they really the first things you think of when you hear the term “war film”?  A couple of us thought it may be better that these movies have their own genre, possibly “historical epic” or “historical drama” since the arc and mood of the films is far different than your All Quiet on the Western Front or Bridge on the River Kwai.  Since you can obviously find Ran on our top 10, you can tell we were willing to bend on these.

Holocaust Films. Schindler’s List and The Pianist some of us thought would be more appropriately classified as “holocaust dramas” than WWII films.  However, Schindler’s List is one we justified by explaining how a large portion of the plot surrounds weapons manufacturing during the war and one of the subplots follows a German officer (one of our stipulations for a war film was that the story had to more-or-less be about a military individual during wartime – for this reason we had to nix The Pianist).

What else? Stalag 17 and The Great Escape are about POWs so we don’t see too much combat, but being that the characters are all military personnel, they were qualifiers.  Only a minuscule portion of The Deer Hunter actually takes place during the Vietnam war, but being that its subject matter heavily surrounded how the war affected its soldiers, it would most definitely still be considered a war film.  The Battle of Algiers is a film about a historical insurgency involving terrorism and guerrilla warfare…but since the battle wasn’t a part of an official war, we’d classify it more as a “revolutionary film” (an appropriate double meaning).  This semantical debate went on for a while, but the Chronicle editors made the tough decisions (we hope) for the better.

So this now leaves many great films that might not directly fit the “war film” criteria specifically or exclusively enough to make our lists, but that doesn’t reconcile the fact that there are many films that still deserve their due.  I’ve decided to briefly write about a couple “others” you may not be aware of but should most definitely check out, since they probably would have made it to near the top of my list if I could have qualified them.

Shame (1968) – Bergman with explosions

Ingmar Bergman is not a name somebody would associate with war films whatsoever, but when a cinematic master of his caliber takes on such a genre, what further draw could there be?  Shame follows the story of two married musicians, Jan Rosenberg (Max von Sydow) and his wife, Eva (Liv Ullman).  The two reside on a farm on a quiet little island off the coast of Sweden.  They made residence there in an attempt to avoid an impending civil war, and are forced to reconcile their indifference to the political climate with a war that’s making its way to their very doorstep – quite literally.

Jan seems like a commendable man, but it becomes clear rather early on that he has some emotional problems (being that he often goes off by himself to cry, presumably out of fear of the war).  Eva grows tiresome of Jan’s weakness, but encourages him to thicken his skin so they can make an attempt to function normally.

Things begin to take a bizarre turn when a force of military men parachute onto their property holding a video camera, and question Eva about her political affiliation.  Battles soon close in from seemingly every direction, and the couple get an unexpected visit from a military acquaintance, Col. Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand), who ends up demanding salacious favors from Eva in exchange for sparing her and Jan, as well as providing them with enough money to escape.  Jan inevitably has a horrible reaction to the insinuation and soon engages in actions which forever change the kind of man he is.

Once Jan and Eva begin their escape, an powerful deterioration in Jan’s character surfaces in a way that few may have expected; for this reason I find Jan to be one of the most interesting male characters Bergman has probably ever written.  This film starts out like a fairly common war drama, but its unique, bizarre, and unprecedented sequence of events evolve it into a brilliant analysis on horrific violence and cruelty arising out of human fear.

Kapò (1959) – The Holocaust through Pontecorvo’s eyes

Most who have heard of Gillo Pontecorvo are likely to immediately attribute his name to his violent masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers. However, many (myself included until recently) are unaware that he also made several other fantastic films.  Kapò is one of those films, and of the three Pontecorvo films I’ve seen, I must say so far this is my favorite.  Much like Shame, this film is also about human deterioration during wartime, but being that its protagonist is a 14-year-old Jewish Italian girl forced into a German concentration camp along with her parents (who are soon thereafter murdered), it’s even more tragic in a way.

On the way home from a piano lesson, young Edith (Susan Strasberg) notices a gathering in her town.  As she passes by she sees her parents (alongside numerous other Jews) being forced into the back of a truck by a Nazi unit.  In a desperate attempt to try to help her parents she is grabbed and thrown in the truck and shipped off to a concentration camp with the others.  Upon her arrival a couple political prisoners there take pity on her and help her by switching her identity with a non-Jewish prisoner who just died.

Thus Edith becomes Nicole, and despite receiving slightly better treatment for not being acknowledged as Jewish, she must endure hell nevertheless.  As the film progresses we see Nicole begin to adapt to her unfortunate circumstances by taking advantage of any glimmer of better treatment she may be offered, oftentimes at the expense of her peers and her own integrity.  Her will to survive seems to drown out a good deal of her compassion, and she is eventually promoted to be a Kapò: a prisoner who is “promoted” out of good behavior to be an assistant officer to the Nazis.

Edith (/Nicole) is constantly forced into situations where she must often choose whether or not to compromise herself further or help the other prisoners from getting the treatment that she herself was trying to avoid.  There comes a point where Edith develops a romantic interest in Sascha (Laurent Terzieff), a Russian POW who happens to be planning a mass escape with some of his comrades.  Edith is incorporated into the plan and from there the film takes some suspenseful, powerful, and tragic turns.  Look out Schindler’s List, there may now be some serious competition for my favorite holocaust film.

Are there any “other” war films that have had a big affect on you?  Let me know – comment below!

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photo sources:

http://lifeiscarbon.com

http://dvdbeaver.com

other resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://imdb.com