nyobserver
Wrapping Up the Year in Film
By | 12/16/14 6:01pm
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UNBROKEN
Put this one at the top of your must-see
list. Angelina Jolie might not, in my opinion, have yet reached the
heights of the acting profession, but with this passionate, inspired,
technically awesome and profoundly exciting chronicle of the life of
Louie Zamperini, the American Olympic athlete who survived 47 days in a
lifeboat and two years as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War
II, she rises to the top rank of first-class film directors in a
male-dominated field overcrowded with hacks.
Beginning with a troubled childhood as
the son of Italian immigrants in California, Louie was an outsider who
seemed destined for a life of crime, but it was the guidance of an older
brother that gave him a talisman to live by: “If I can take it, I can
make it.” Played with enormous charisma and extraordinary physical
endurance by rising U.K. newcomer and inevitable future star Jack
O’Connell, Louie moves from the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin to the rank
of pilot, shot down with two comrades and left wounded and bleeding in
the shark-infested waters of the Pacific. Then, the capture by the
Japanese Navy—plunged into an underground hole where he listened to his
best friend being tortured, and finally found himself the personal
victim of a sadistic commandant (played unflinchingly by the Japanese
singer-composer Miyavi) who subjected him to years of unflagging
brutality.
It’s hard to believe anyone could survive
inhumanities this severe and still live, but Louie earned a Purple
Heart, realized his dream of attending one last Olympics (in Japan, of
all places!) and went on to tell his story in the critically acclaimed
biography Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, which spent 180 weeks
on the best-seller list before becoming the source material for this
remarkable screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese and
William Nicholson.
Ms. Jolie’s obsession with Louie, who
died in July at age 97, informs every scene. The air strikes and raft
and camp sequences hold equal weight, the camerawork by Roger Deakins is
magnificent, and the vast supporting cast of unknowns including
Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock and Luke Treadaway, is
exemplary. Although it eschews the usual P.O.W. camp clichés, Unbroken is
probably too grim, brutal and depressing for most viewers, and the
decision to open it on Christmas Day is questionable. But as a tribute
to one hero’s fortitude in refusing to give in to evil, it gives off its
own admirable feeling of positive spiritual energy that left me feeling
good about the best qualities of mankind. One of the finest
achievements of the 2014 film year.
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