Unbroken: an incomplete but fascinating story of strength and forgiveness
Planes, running, sharks, beatings, poop, coal, and more beatings. That’s what Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken is about: the struggles of track star, castaway, and prisoner of war Louis Zamperini in World War II.
Stationed at an air base in Hawaii and tasked with attacking Japanese forces in the Pacific islands, Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) leads the life of a World War II bombardier after war interrupted his career as a professional runner. On a failed rescue mission, his plane goes down, leaving him stranded in a raft with pilot Russell Allen “Phil” Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson) and Francis “Mac” McNamara (Finn Wittrock). Mac dies, but after 47 days afloat, Louis and Phil are captured alive by Japanese troops. They are sent to Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camps to endure grueling interrogations, grisly living conditions, slave labor, and cruel beatings at the hands of Japanese officers. One man in particular, Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara), or “the Bird,” delights in violently beating and humiliating Louis, pushing him to the brink of his patience, strength, dignity, and ability to forgive.
Jolie’s second movie as director, although not stellar, was captivating. While Jolie utilized many cliches of historical film, including soft lighting, dramatic music, and filtered hues, the camera work was still intriguing, mixing aesthetic perpendicular angles with other ordinary point-of-views. In an effort to remain within the PG-13 rating, much of the violence occurred off-screen, but I still experienced a few nauseous bouts of adrenaline at the lunging sharks and the Bird’s sudden flurries of rage.
O’Connell and Ishihara channeled Zamperini and Watanabe’s clash of perseverance and insanity quite well. Through his dyed-black hair, O’Connell always radiated vivid defiance while retaining some of Zamperini’s light-heartedness. I could feel Zamperini’s suffocating pity and slow degradation prickling on my skin through O’Connell’s pained countenance, speech and posture. Ishihara was realistically devilish as Watanabe, alternating between periods of carefully controlled anger and bursts of all-out rage, intensifying the contrast between his polar personalities. The interplay of the Bird’s cold, black, unfeeling eyes and Louis’s wide, electric blue, stubborn ones filled the theater with a chilly tension, perfectly executed by the two actors.
Overall, it was hard for this movie adaptation to completely channel the spirit of its paper counterpart written by Laura Hillenbrand. With a few cheesy flashbacks to Zamperini’s childhood and flashes of onscreen text in the end, much of Zamperini’s life aside from his experiences as a castaway and POW was left out, not to mention other crucial details of POW camp that were skimmed over. The novel’s theme of forgiveness, especially in the latter part of Zamperini’s life, was mentioned, but not emphasized enough, which will ultimately leave some ignorant people exiting the theater with hatred for the Japanese. Without reading the book and knowing more about Zamperini’s later post traumatic stress and involvement with Christianity, it will be hard for audience members to appreciate the lessons of true forgiveness in this story.
However, Jolie did her best to make as good of a plausible movie adaptation as she could of Louis Zamperini’s expansive life. Sticking to a relatively small cast, a few steady setting transitions, CGI effects that weren’t over-the-top, and realistic costuming and makeup, this movie did well in what it focused on. Although it’s missing a few critical parts of the story, Unbroken fires up and beats down emotions, and tries to leave viewers with an unbroken sense of hope, bravery and empathy.
Rating: 7/10 stars
