Great Films About Terrible Events
Our current film for review is Schindler's List (1993), and watching it again reminded me of a rough weekend in which a friend of mine and I decided to watch 3 films about the Holocaust. I believe we had gone to a friend's house and we met a person with a tattoo from the extermination camps or it was the daughter of somebody with the tattoos...either way, we became motivated to watch some films that were said to have realistically depicted the event. Being young and naïve, I failed to realize two things: 1) watching a film about an event is nothing like experiencing the event and we got much more out of talking to the person that had first or second hand experience and 2) watching seven hours worth of movies about such a horrible event is deeply depressing. However, I did learn that some truly great movies can come from attempting to tell the story of people who survived (or didn't) under great duress. It is a testament to human will and psyche and attempting to capture that is a worthy endeavor, I think. So, I rounded up a list of movies that portrayed atrocities while telling an amazing story of human villainy and endurance that can teach us all how to be better to each other and stay strong under the most dire of situations. I highly recommend keeping your viewing to one of these films at a time because they can really be emotionally overwhelming.
A quick note that should be obvious, I am not addressing the severity of an event portrayed in a film. I am only recommending some good movies that have a similar tone and subject type. A second note is that these are big budget Hollywood style movies and don't include all the wonderful documentaries and independent films that cover this kind of subject matter. This list is my attempt to recognize when Hollywood does a documentary style film about an atrocity in a cinematic yet respectful way.
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The Pianist (2002), Schindler's List (1993), and Life is Beautiful (1997)
So these are the films that I watched over one depressing weekend and it was one of the most heart wrenching times I have experienced that didn't include personal loss. There are few things in history as reviled as the treatment of the European Jewish people during the Nazi cleansing during World War 2. The systematic slaughter was horrific and trying to portray the lives of the people who endured the atrocities in a consciously respectful manner while also Hollywoodizing the story is quite the tightrope walk. I believe these three movies did it masterfully. Schindler's List is Steven Spielberg's attempt to recognize some of the great acts of humanity at great personal risk that occurred during the Holocaust. Very depressing yet very inspiring at the same time. Life is Beautiful is the story of a father who tries to comfort his young son in the face of death camp horrors in an effort to help him survive. A beautiful portrayal of a father that will literally do anything to keep his son's spirit alive in the darkest of situations. Finally, The Pianist was directed by Roman Polanski and tells the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish pianist from Poland, who hid from the Nazi army but was discovered by a German officer who helped Szpilman hide out of respect for his musical talent. Another fantastic story. All three films were nominated for Best Picture and all three won multiple Oscars. These are amazing examples of what larger budget films can do to tell an amazing tale of perseverance in the face of living Hell.
The Killing Fields (1984)
This is a British biographical drama set in Cambodia when a communist faction led by Prime Minister Pol Pot ruled the country from 1975 to 1979. During this time, an estimated 2 million people were killed and tortured during a genocidal campaign to cleanse Cambodia of minorities. The killing fields are actually a number sites in Cambodia that have over 20,000 mass graves with an estimated 1.4 million buried from the executions and starvation. The film tells the story of two reporters who were trapped and held in Cambodia. What really hits home is that the actor who played one of the reporters was a real survivor of the Cambodian cleansing and had survived starvation by eating bugs and made himself necessary as a doctor. That man was named Haing S. Ngor and he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal. This film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. It is a seriously violent film that doesn't shy away from the horrors that occurred, and it brought awareness of the atrocities that many Americans were not very aware of at the time.
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
This is the story of a Civil War and uprising in the African nation of Rwanda in 1993, where a minority group was in power, the Tutsi, and the president at the time was assassinated causing a power vacuum. I am unsure as how the situation got that way, but it occurred during European colonization when German and Belgian powers chose a particular group of people and placed them in power of the country. It became an economical divide and was an underlying point of elitism and racism in the country, so when the power system disappeared, the people that were not of the ruling class, the Hutu, began a genocidal cleansing of the country. It didn't stop at just the oppressing people in power, angry Hutu militia started killing all Tutsi in the streets with machetes and an estimated 500,000-800,000 people were murdered in the streets over a period of around 100 days. That was around 10% of the total population of Rwanda at the time and about 75% of all Tutsi people.
The film tells the story of a hotel owner who attempts to hide his family and about 1000 other people throughout his hotel from the killing. The clear and present danger at all times makes for constant tension in the film. I remember watching helicopter film footage in the 90s of people who had been slaughtered in the roads by knives and then roughly pushed to the sides to make room for vehicles. The lack of hesitation and remorse of the Hutu militia following years of oppression and anger is portrayed painfully well in this film and it translates to hours of anxiety for the audience. The film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and listed by the AFI as one of the top 100 most inspirational films of all time.
Empire of the Sun (1987)
This film is on my list because it had a major effect on me as a kid. I was seven or eight when I saw it and I identified with the lead role. Then I saw everything fall apart. It is the story of the foreign families that lived in Shanghai that were captured and taken as prisoners of war during the Japanese invasion of China during World War 2. These were mostly privileged Europeans and didn't know much hardship... and they mostly just died. People who had everything fell so far and their families suffered with them. It is not the loss of life of many of the films on this list, but the movie is amazing and stars Christian Bale in his first major role. It is beautifully acted, beautifully directed, and beautifully shot. The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards but did not bring home any trophies. It is an amazing coming of age story set in a strangely horrible situation and the film is great.
Amistad (1997)
It occurs to me that Steven Spielberg has made a name on making well produced and well directed films about some of the worst atrocities of the last couple of centuries. Slavery is a horror that is difficult to analyze with a film that lasts only 2-3 hours, so this was instead the experience of a single survivor from a slave boat. I would say that this is not so much the experience of being a slave as much as the horror of being stolen from your home and forced into a situation in which you will suffer until you die. Being captured and sold into slavery is worse than a death sentence because it is a slow and horrific death in which your work and pain benefits your oppressors until you are used up and die. There are few things I can think of that could possible be worse than being captured and enslaved.
Amistad is the name of a boat that was shipping slaves to America that was overrun by the slaves on board and the movie tells the story of the trial of the escapees who were captured by an American naval ship. Should they be convicted of murder for killing their captors? Should they be forced into slavery since that is what they were intended to become? Should they be charged with stealing since they were essentially freed slaves that had been purchased and lost somebody a lot of money? Should they be freed and allowed to live out their lives in peace (resounding yes on this one)? The film was based on the true story of the Spanish ship, La Amistad (which is ironically Spanish for friendship), and the film, although dramatized, is quite accurate to the events that occurred. It is a fantastic film, but there are a couple of scenes of the mistreatment of the African captives that haunted me for a very long time. The Academy agreed about the quality of the film since the film was nominated for 4 Oscars. Of exceptional note was the music and the acting of Sir Anthony Hopkins and a young Djimon Hounsou.
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This is just a small sampling of big Hollywood movies that were of high quality and addressed horrific events in history. There are many others and I invite anyone to add on their own suggestions. I love to learn and I love to watch movies so please feel welcome to add your favorites.
