Remember Saving Private Ryan? Remember how amazing the Normandy scenes looked the first time you saw them?
They were brutal, visceral but thrilling.
It was a neat bit of Spielbergian string pulling to make you feel horrified and yet genuinely excited – how many of you wanted to be in on that action, chopping down Nazis with your trusty browning?
With Lu Chuan’s City of life and death, the same visceral, blood curdling reality of war awaits you, but thanks to some truly amazing auteurship the last thing you’ll feel is elated…
Detailing events in 1937, when Japanese troops defeated and occupied the former Chinese capital Nanjing, and including the rape and murder of an estimated 70,0000 civilians, City of Life and Death shows a dark period in human history that fostered an animosity between the two eastern empires that remains to this day.
The terror practically drips off the screen, some striking touches of humanity on both sides as the perspective shifts between Japanese and Chinese making it all the harder to understand how disciplined troops could conduct such appalling acts of savagery.
In terms of plot there’s little to go on, exact details of the incident are still muddled – deliberately in many cases – but here Chuan focusses on a small group of soldiers desperately trying to staunch the violence with little success, meaning we are immersed in the true human experience of war, one of gruelling horror. Events are captured in an unforgiving monochrome that rivals Rome:Open City in it’s attention to detail and refusal to turn from ferocious fighting, the director concealing his influence, masking any air of construction and providing a war film that far outstrips The Hurt Locker.
The Rape of Nan King is something of a historical footnote in the west, and while the sheer violence makes this nigh unwatchable at times, it’s a desperately important document that deserves widespread recognition.
Informative, enthralling and appalling in equal measure, City of Life and Death is one of the most important war movies made in recent memory, it’s director a massive talent who refuses to sanitise events, instead revealing them with a brave and passionate eye. It’s on limited release across the UK, but is well worth seeking out.
Brilliant and terrible.
