Intellectual Defenestration

"At what price mercy?"

To End All Wars had been sitting unwatched on top of our TV for the last two weeks because of everything going on. Yesterday, Amy and I finally had the opportunity to sit down and watch it.

For some reason or another, we've viewed a steady stream of different WWII movies over the last several months - from newer movies such as The Pianist and Life is Beautiful to the older, not as graphic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Tora, Tora, Tora, and A Bridge Too Far. Although viewing too much pain and suffering can be counterproductive, I think the attraction of movies like those listed is that they can, in a sense, heighten and focus the "big questions" of life. Everyone has to deal with issues of death, loss, and the search for meaning. Great suffering, such as in times of war, can bring all of those questions together and force our attention upon them.

The problem, though, is that while mankind seems to have tremendous artistic capacity for describing the questions, the answers do not always come as quickly. The answers to the difficult questions encountered when facing either raw evil or a complete loss of hope frequently come down to some sort of a vague existentialism or stoicism, or a call to renewed nationalism, or even familialism. Life is worth pursing in the midst of great hardship because one has a duty to country, or a duty to family, or, well, just because.

To End All Wars actually tries to give real answers to those questions (not that duty to country or family are empty, just that they only go so far). It tells the true story of Ernest Gordon and his Scottish regiment, captured during the beginning of WWII at Singapore and forced to work on the "Railway of Death." In the midst of horrible brutality, the POW's are forced to decide how to respond to inhuman conditions and an absolute loss of hope. Some keep themselves alive through a thirst for revenge and become no different than their captors. Others, though, seek to work through the hardship to forgiveness, reconciliation, and redemption.

Though a low budget film and with its own share of faults, To End All Wars succeeds amazingly well at portraying that process of redemption. The movie is brutal in its depiction of man's capacity for barbarism, but that brutality works as it should, not as mere gratuitous blood and gore, but to further heighten the response of many of the men in the POW camp. The scenes of self-sacrifice were moving in a way I have seen in very few other movies: powerful without being preachy and meaningful without being simplistic or naive.

It really is a shame the movie didn't get wider distribution when it was released. But, now that it is out on DVD, I highly recommend it as a rental. If I can, I'm going to try to get the book to read as well.

July 26, 2004 11:55 AM