Review: Patrick Compton (9/10)
There are some film directors whose visual style is
readily apparent. Sam Peckinpah’s signature was slow-motion death as his Western
gunslingers blasted each other with shotguns; it’s now become apparent that Mel
Gibson’s authorial fingerprint is an almost voluptuous obsession with violence
and death.
This first became apparent in his magnificent Scottish
drama, Braveheart (1995), but the
tendency became controversial in his almost pornographically violent depiction
of Christ’s arrest and crucifixion in The
Passion of the Christ (2004). Apocalypto
(2006) was also extremely violent and there are a number of scenes in his
latest film, Hacksaw Ridge – his
first in 10 years – which don’t spare the audience’s sensibilities.
But now, after years of being frozen out of Hollywood for
anti-semitic and homophobic remarks, it looks like the Aussie bad boy is back
in favour. This war movie, which many will see as inspirational, is based on
the life of Desmond Doss who won a Congressional Medal of Honour for bravery
during the battle for Okinawa in 1945. The movie has already been nominated for
awards in this year’s Golden Globes ceremony and Oscar glory may follow.
The unusual element in this story of remarkable heroism
involves the fact that Doss was a Seventh Day Adventist who believed,
literally, in the sixth commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. This didn’t stop him
from patriotically volunteering for military duty after the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbour, but we quickly learn that his service had to be on his terms.
Doss insisted that he wanted to serve as an unarmed army medic, saving lives
rather than taking them, and initially it was a combination that the army could
not countenance.
In the first half of this 139-minute film we are shown
key scenes from his youth in Virginia as well as his toxic experiences during
army training. He was abused during training, called a coward and a conscientious
objector (though he preferred to call himself a “conscientious co-operator”)
and eventually faced a court-martial. He survived all these trials, met and
married his sweetheart, nurse Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer) and was packed
off to Okinawa with the US marines as the Pacific war approached its grisly
climax.
The entire story is rooted in war. In the early scenes,
we are shown how Doss’s father, Tom (Hugo Weaving), has become a violent,
self-hating alcoholic following his devastating experiences on the Western
Front during World War One. It is Desmond’s interactions with his father, as
well as a near-tragic incident with his older brother, that encourages him to
eschew all violence.
The second half of the film, which focuses on the bloody
American assault on Hacksaw Ridge which culminates in the conquest of the
island, represents a litany of horrors. My question, as Gibson showers us with
mutilated bodies, death by flame-throwers and other such abominations, is
whether all this almost aestheticised death undercuts the movie's higher moral
purpose.
The horrors – and heroics – of war have recently been
emphasised in such films as Steven Spielberg’s marvellous Saving Private Ryan, but even that film lacks Gibson’s consistent
emphasis on the worst that war can do. In these dreadful circumstances, Doss’s
series of rescues, under intense fire, of wounded American and even some
Japanese soldiers is one of war’s most glorious achievements.
There are a number of fine performances, with Andrew
Garfield (who gained early fame as Spiderman) outstanding as the stubborn,
solitary medic who refuses to carry a firearm and is prepared to undergo all
the traumas of warfare without any means of defence, except perhaps his beloved
Bible. Vince Vaughn, almost typecast as a comic actor, gives an interestingly
sparky performance as Doss’s sergeant-major during training and commanding
officer on Okinawa while a collection of lesser-known actors are all convincing
as Doss’s comrades.
Working from an original script by Andrew Knight and
Robert Schenkkan, Gibson has created a complex drama, both brutally violent and
achingly tender, a terrible war seen from the perspective of a pacifist who
nevertheless judges the war to be a just one.
Gibson’s own strong brand of Catholicism often seems to
guide his hand as he shows a pacifist inspiring the men with whom he is engaged
in combat. There are moments, indeed, when Gibson seems to be suggesting that
the American assault is a case of Onward Christian Soldiers.
The film which opened on December 30, is currently being
screened at Gateway, The Pavilion, Suncoast, Watercrest and Midlands Mall. - Patrick
Compton
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