FILM REVIEW: THE RAILWAY MAN

Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) in The Railway Man.

Getting there from here

By John Esther

In the early 1980s, Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) is a lonely, tormented man who continues to study Britain's railway system. He has always loved trains, despite the pain this love for trains brought him during WWII when he and his fellow British soldiers surrendered to Japanese soldiers in Singapore, 1942, and were brought to the Thai/Burma border and ordered to build the "Death Railway."

During another yet seemingly ordinary ride on the train, Lomax meets Canadian nurse Pattie Wallace (Nicole Kidman) and the two have such a remarkable conversation, Eric, at last, falls in love. The two get married.

However, it soon becomes very clear to Mrs. Lomax that her husband has psychological problems stemming from the great war. With the help of Finlay (Stellan Skarsgaard), a fellow POW of Eric's, Patti is determined to help her husband.

Based on Lomax's book, directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and the screenplay written by Andy Paterson and Frank Cottrell Boyce, the film deals with some of the uglier aspects of war, namely how torture can be justified by the upper echelons of government through twisted language that winds it way down the chain of command. Indeed, the use of language plays many roles in The Railway Man.

While in The Railway Man, the film deals with a British officer (Jeremy Irvine) and a Japanese-English translator Takeshi Nagase (Tanroh Ishida) who tortures the young Eric through such techniques as waterboarding, as an American, one can only anticipate the day when filmmakers illustrate (further) the torturous events at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and those who are and were on the wrong side of history.

In the meantime, The Railway Man is not only a germane warning to current U.S. policy, it is also one of the better films to come out so far this year.

"So many dead." "No, so many murdered."

 

DVD REVIEW: BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO

A scene from Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.

Bugging themselves

By Don Simpson

What sounds like a title for a Japanese monster movie (Godzilla’s toughest match yet...Beetle Queen! Conquers! Tokyo!!!) is actually an artsy audio/video essay about the Japanese obsession with insects. Writer-director Jessica Oreck’s film is way too meditative and meandering to be considered a documentary, yet not experimental enough to be considered -- well -- experimental.

Even Oreck’s motive is somewhat oblique. Maybe Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is meant to be a video poem and sound collage about the philosophical obsession of Japanese to make small scale replicas of the world around them for telescopic contemplation (haiku poetry, bonsai trees, Zen gardens, insect aquariums, etc.); or possibly Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is meant to draw visual similarities between the cultural and societal traditions of the Japanese and those of the insects they admire so fervently; then again, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo could be read as a fairly broad statement about the commodification of bugs for profit.

I suspect that Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is purposely indirect in its intent in order to allow the viewer to come to their own conclusions. For example, someone interested in humankind’s relationship with nature might walk away from this film pondering the impact this obsession has on the natural population of the insects in Japan. This person might ask: Does this truly represent the Buddhist notion of having a harmonious relationship with nature? (Personally, I suspect that the insects would possess more harmony if they were not held captive by humans in small plastic boxes.) It seems fairly selfish to assume that the bugs are happy. Then again, I have two indoor domesticated cats -- and, yes, there are certain species of stinging and venomous bugs (and roaches) that I do not have any qualms about squashing -- so who am I to cast judgment?

Upon sight of most of the creepy crawlies featured in Oreck’s film, most of the Western world would scream “exterminate!” faster than a Dalek at the site of Dr. Who, but the Japanese purchase insects (and related supplies) -- the stranger and scarier the better -- at pet stores, insect collector conventions, roadside stands and even vending machines. The prices are so outrageous that some insect hunters earn enough income by merely shaking beetles from trees to purchase a Ferrari.

In an odd sort of way, Oreck (a docent at New York's American Museum of Natural History) collects Japanese bug collectors as if they are the specimens, capturing them with Sean Price Williams’ gorgeous videography and trapping them within the confines of the silver screen for audiences to marvel. Oreck’s film does not appear to be condescending or patronizing towards its subjects; her motives actually seem quite innocent and sincere -- similar to that of the bug collectors -- as if she merely means to encapsulate a much larger world in a 90-minute video for viewers to ponder and reflect upon.