In the Heat of the Night (USA, 1967)
Mystery drama about a black police detective who investigates a murder in a racist Southern town . It won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rod Steiger (who is perfectly convincing as a redneck police officer).
Cinematography, direction and acting are all top notch. It remains a very worthwhile watch today both as a mystery drama (with cop buddy comedy undertones) and an attestation of everyday racism in the South in the not so distant past.
I found
this review particularly well written.
TP to tazz for the recommendation.
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawerence (UK/Japan/New Zealand, 1983)
The life of soldiers who fought for the UK in WWII in Japanese PoW camps. Based on autobiographical works by Laurens van der Post. Since Post spoke Japanese he was in the privileged position of acting as intermediary between the Japanese PoW camp authorities and the prisoners. Unfortunately, the film does not deal with the work he did to improve the prisoner's welfare (he organized a "camp university" as well as a farm to help with the prisoners nutritional needs). By the way, in the film he is shown to speak Japanese fluently, but in reality his grasp of the language was just basic - this is one of several misleading details, I will return to that shortly.
This is a weird film at many levels. To begin with it stars two musicians (David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto). Although they both do a fine job acting, none is convincing in their respective roles. Why have Bowie play an upper middle class officer of impeccable patriotism? This goes against the grain of everything we know about him. What is more, as
Ebert astutely pointed out, the British and Japanese have very different approaches to acting: the Japanese being more dramatic and using grimaces and screaming a lot more. This incompatibility of the acting styles produces unequal results: sometimes it seems comic, other times it makes for an interesting reflection on cultural differences.
My main problem however is with the focus of the film on cultural conflict. The film seems to suggest that violence in PoW camps is at least partially the result of a lack of cultural understanding. The Japanese do not understand that for the British captivity is the continuation of war with different means, and the British do not understand the Japanese code of honour.
This culminates in the final scene of the film when Post absolves a Japanese sergeant who is about to be executed for war crimes, on the basis that it is all a big cultural misunderstanding and of people on both sides being too sure they are right. I would have understood it if the moral pardon was given on a humanitarian basis. But cultural misunderstanding? Hell no. 25% of British PoWs died (actually in many cases they were outright murdered). For comparison, 3.5% of the British PoWs in German camps died; clearly, something went terribly wrong with Japanese camps.
The film does indeed explain that Japan openly rejected international laws on the treatment of PoWs and it depicts several acts of wanton sadism against the prisoners. What is missing however is an understanding of the scale of the deaths. It's not like you were safe unless a mean Japanese officer singled you out.
These are major weaknesses in a film that deals with a significant historical topic, but they can be partially excused in the spirit of a desirable postwar reconciliation. Besides, not everything in the film is bad. The contrast between the calm British and the irritable Japanese makes for some memorable scenes; the same is true for the thinly veiled homosexual attraction between Bowie and Sakamoto.