Tag Archives: War Movies
Dresden (2006) or Was the Bombing of Dresden a War Crime?
Dresden is a quite controversial German movie that has been criticised a lot. Shot for TV it is basically a very corny love story between a German nurse and an English fighter pilot.
I´m not going into any plot details since they are quite boring but still I do think this movie achieved something.
The love story takes place during the days before the bombing of Dresden starting February 13 1945 and ends with a depiction of the bombing.
This end part as well as all the parts in the English Head Quarters from where the bombing was organised had me glued to the TV screen. The moral conflicts of the British to bomb what they knew to be one of the most beautiful European cities was shown very well. The atrocity of what is still called a war crime nowadays, is symbolised in the collapse of the famous Frauenkirche, one of the town´s landmarks (reconstructed in 2008 as a symbol of hope and peace). The church withstood two days of bombing and finally collapsed on the second day.
The damage the bombing caused, the heatwaves, the firy wind… I think it is shown rather well however varnished with a lot of corny elements.
The end of the film shows actual footage, the re-inauguration of the rebuilt Frauenkirche.
This movie, as flawed as it is, offers a lot of food for thought. How justified was it to systematically bomb a city like that, to kill so many and to destroy century old architectural treasures? How is this different from the bombing of other cities?
Was it unavoidable? Was it a war crime? How did the pilots feel?
Further questions circle around the film makers´ choice to mix a corny romance with historical facts.
Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) or A Truly Outstanding Legal Drama
Judgment at Nuremberg is a brilliant movie by Stanley Kramer. Outstanding actors, great pictures and a gripping story. Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland and Maximilian Schell. They are all good, very good.
The movie´s setting is post-WWII occupied Germany. It tells the story of the trial of 4 German Nazi judges in an American court. They are accused of being responsible for sterilization and exterminations.
Spencer Tracy stars as Judge Dan Haywood who is conducting the trial, Marlene Dietrich plays Mrs. Bertholt, the widow of an executed Nazi army officer. Burt Lancaster is one of the accused judges, Maximilian Schell his defendant. One of the most convincing performances is given by Montgomery Clift who plays the role of one of the judges´ victims. His interrogation is so touchingly performed, makes you feel really uneasy.
The film follows Judge Haywood in the court room and outside where he tries to get the full picture by befriending Mrs. Bertholt and talking to his housekeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Halbestadt to find out what the German people really knew. It seems as if each one´s personal history and concerns overshadowed the things that happened around them. And even though they lived so close to Dachau, Halbestadts pretend to have been ignorant of the camps.
During the trial the testimonies of the witnesses, supported by original footage of the concentration camps and the interrogation of the accused, completes the picture of the past horrors.
Judge Haywood must now establish if, in believing to serve their country, the accused did right or wrong. Do exceptional circumstances permit different moral criteria? Does the conviction to do the right thing exempt from punishment?
If you want Judge Haywood´s answer to these questions and if you like to see truly outstanding movies and great acting, watch this one as soon as you can.
My Favourite War Movie Character or The Ultimate Sacrifice
To determine who is your favourite war movie character is a very, very subjective thing. At least for me. No objectivity here. It is neither linked to the fact if I do consider the movie he´s in to be outstanding or average, it doesn´t say anything about the acting in itself, I really only think of the character. And, yeah well maybe it has something to do with the fact that the role is played by one of my favourite actors.
What I loved about this character is his goodness. In all the horror that surrounds him, he stays good. Nothing compromises him, nothing turns him into an inhuman being devoid of feelings or compassion. And in the end he doesn´t shy away from sacrificing himself. He is the ultimate war movie hero, hero through his sacrifice not through his killings.
And yes, I alluded to him in another post (Christ and the War Movie Hero). My favourite character is Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) in Platoon. And yes, I´m sure it´s no coincidence that he was later chosen to play Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ. He´s been my favourite for many years now and I only wavered once, after having seen When Trumpets Fade where we see another sacrificial hero.
Kokoda, 39th Battalion (2006) or The Australians´ Fight in the Pacific
Kokoda 39th Battalion is an Australian movie by Alister Grierson and tells another story that took place in the Pacific during WWII. Only this time we don´t watch Americans fight for the Australians (as they do, amongst oher things, in the miniseries The Pacific), but the Australians themselves. The Kokoda trail on Papua New Guinea is the main trail that leads directly to Port Moresby. By means of this trail the Japanese were planning to arrive at Port Moresby and from there an invasion of Australia would have been easy.
Obviously the Australians did everything to prevent this. The 39th battalion who is in the center of this movie was essentially a battalion of untrained volunteers. The central story focuses on two brothers who joined this battalion together.
The opening of the movie shows us a sequence of still lives that are very beautiful. Pictures of fauna and flora of the island. After that we see what has to be interpreted as premonition like dream of Jack, one of the two brothers. This is somewhat an exaggeration of what the terrain was like. Same as in episode 4 of The Pacific there is a constant rain, and the terrain gets muddier and muddier. Jack slips and is almost drowning in mud. In the end he looks like some almost amphibian prehistoric creature. Those first ten minutes make you believe you might watch a film like The Thin Red Line with a lot of flashback elements, daydreams but that is, as you soon realise, not the case. From that moment on Kokoda turns into Hamburger Hill, meaning heavy jungle infantry combat.
The men are surrounded by Japanese soldiers whose camouflage is so much more efficient than their own, whose fighting experience is outstanding, and whose cruelty, as the movie wants to make us believe, is beyond imagination.
This was one of the movies that made me think again and again: Why war? Why did that happen? Why did it have to happen. The efforts of the Australians seem so futile, that even though they won in the end, there is nothing noble in all this. It´s just horrible and hard to watch.
I first thought that this was an average movie but the overall atmosphere is so intense, the desperate fight of these badly trained men is so well depicted that I think it´s quite a good movie that I would recommend you´d watch. And, most important, the pictures of the dense forest and the instances of cruelty in the middle of the jungle aren´t easily forgotten and stay in your mind long after you´ve watched it.
Yes, it´s biased, the Japanese are shown as beastly monsters but still.
Furthermore it tells a quite soulful story of the deep bond between brothers.
All About War Movies 
