![]() Nicole Kidman, playing ordinary with plain brown hair and unmasked wrinkles, is the divorcée who plucks him from bachelorhood and risks confronting those wartime demons, the pair meeting, appropriately, on a train journey through pylon-studded Northern England. With the bitterest of ironies, the young Eric Lomax had been bewitched by railway lore - something he saw as a civilising force, connecting the world. The British actor, who could dance this brand of fractured nobility on the head of a pin, is the former POW scarred by a war spent building the very railway that cut through Burma and over the bridge that later starred in The Bridge On The River Kwai. While the film is about war, history and man's inhumanity to man, for those who are willing to see, the virtues of reconciliation and forgiveness have the power to transcend suffering and to heal the wounded souls of victims and perpetrators.Colin Firth’s new movie promises awards-frequency gravitas. For dramatic purposes, the filmmakers of "The Railway Man" have taken some license with Lomax's story, but overall, it is a truthful account about a scarred POW, a wife's love for her husband, and a decision to reconcile that brought moral freedom decades later. The film evokes other movies about World War II, such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "To End All Wars." For those who have read the book, the upcoming Christmas release of "Unbroken," about Louis Zamperini, who also survived a Japanese POW camp, will come to mind. Australian director Jonathan Teplitzky never overplays his hand, evoking stark performances from his actors. The film is adapted from Eric Lomax's best-selling autobiography The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness. His psychological and spiritual suffering are evident in his stiff bearing and his almost childlike, obsessive interest in the railways that masks his inner pain. Firth's performance is at once vulnerable and strong. In and out of theaters quickly, I only saw it because it was on the selection of films offered on a recent flight to Rome. theaters in April and became available on DVD in August. Eric can hardly bear to learn that this man, who had so profoundly humiliated him, was still living. He is working in Thailand at a World War II museum dedicated to reconciliation. Thirty-five years later, Eric learns that Nagase (now portrayed by Hiroyuki Sanada) is still alive. Even though he explains the device can only receive, they use waterboarding and psychological torture to get him to admit his "wrongdoing." One man especially, the interpreter, Takashi Nagase (Tanroh Ishida), is compelled to make Eric's life miserable, almost to the point of no return. But the Japanese discover it, and Eric is isolated and tortured so he will admit to sending news to the allies. Eric, always mechanical, builds a small radio receiver so the men can learn news of the war in the POW camp. The men are made to work under inhuman conditions. The backstory is that Eric and his band of brothers were captured by the Japanese in Singapore and forced to work on the Thai-Burma Railway in 1942. Finlay does something desperate that gets Eric's attention. Patti approaches Finlay (Skellan Skarsgard), the unit's leader, to ask him to get Eric to open up to her, because his nightmares and behavior are worsening. Eric has nightmares, and though he meets with the men from his squadron every month or so, this does little to alleviate his stress. Soon Patti learns that Eric suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. One day in 1980, while taking his seat on a train, Lomax (played as an older man by Colin Firth) meets Patti Wallace (Nicole Kidman), and they strike up a friendship that eventually leads to love and marriage, though Patti is almost 20 years younger than the veteran. After World War II, he memorized timetables and had a keen interest in the railway system of Great Britain. "The Railway Man" is probably the best film you haven't seen this year.įrom the time he was a boy, Eric Lomax (Jeremy Irvine) always loved trains in his native Scotland. ![]() Colin Firth in "The Railway Man" (CNS/The Wienstein Company)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |