Flowers of War: A review of an all too poignant war film

Christian Bale in a war film: what more could you want from a Sunday evening? I prepared myself to cozy up and connect too deeply to on screen characters fighting in a war while I peacefully sipped my glass of pinot. Tears are always expected to be shed in war films (however, in my case, anything on TV…The Great British Bake Off’s biscuit week is my weak spot) but this film left more than a few streak marks down my cheeks for soggy bottoms and burnt snaps.

I was expecting another Empire of the Sun type film - a heartwarming blockbuster that although does not completely sugar coat the realities of war, offers the story with a glossy detatchment from truly gruesome images. Alas, this was not the case. Flowers of War, directed by Zhang Yimou, is a harrowingly honest tale captured with brutal imagery that retells the true story of the massacre of Nanking. It follows a mortician, John Miller (Bale) who travels to Nanking as the Japanese soldiers mercilessly invade the city, the then the capital of the Chinese republic. Miller is sent to look for the body of a dead priest but soon finds himself in his place. Whilst dressed in his clothes and living in his room, he begins to form an attachment to the convent girls who live there, previously under the protection of the priest. The film follows the fate of those hiding in the cathedral, composed of Miller, the convent girls, an orphan boy George who was raised by the priest and a gaggle of vapid prostitutes. After a brutal scene of attempted mass rape of the convent girls, Miller begins to form a plan of escape out of Nanking.

In my mind, the real hero realises in the form of George Chen (Tianyuan Huang) - the orphan boy, who acts as a loyal guardian to the girls despite being the same age. His sweet but stubborn disposition, fighting against the arrogant Miller as he attempts to ransack the convents' wine, donned with a face taken up by round glasses, forces the viewer to symptahise with the child he is. His shining moment, among many, comes after the previously selfish prostitutes volunteer to go to the Japanese Army’s party, taking the place of the convent girls who were preparing to jump off the tower to avoid the hands of their enemy. With one girl short, George courageously steps in, touchingly begging Miller to fashion him a wig for his disguise. His final moments are captured as he is hurtled off in the truck to the “party” with the prostitutes disguised as the girls, his fate left tragically unknown. Today, this kind of story resonates deeply in a way that surpasses the impact of many other films I’ve seen.

The shocking relevance to modern times is what makes this film so significant. This became apparent when, after finishing the film, I switched to the BBC news, where it presented horrors surpassing those we had just witnessed in the intense feature film. The stark reality that this combination of medias exposed, was that telling the stories of these conflicts in film doesn’t always have the effect they should. The didactic nature of a war film's account, to help us try to understand the reality of war and the horrors that become an inevitable part of it, is ultimately proved futile. The current landscape proves this as lessons have clearly not been learnt. A film can not singlehandedly solve all world problems, and won’t claim to, but it can open the viewers eyes to the reptitiveness of our mistakes. The incessant brutality towards civilians is as heartwrenching in the retelling of the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s as it is today with the recent terrorist attacks by Hamas. There is a significant line in the film from the Japanese Lt. Kato where he enters the convent after the attempted rape of the children, saying to Miller “I apologise on behalf of our soldiers. Please understand, in the middle of a war, occasional unfortunate behaviour is inevitable”. Whilst this destroys the sympathy the auidence had for the morally plauged Lieutenant, it also presents itself as the all too common casual brushing off of inhumane behaviour that should be automatically condemned, no matter the situation. Children and women suffering the consequences of war should be something of a rarity, but yet they continue to be collateral damage.

What these war films attempt to offer and what I find is most important about them, is a reminder of our past mistakes and all too often, as a mirror to our present ones. This is the reason I implore anyone who deems war films “too upsetting to watch” to give the stories the respect they deserve by listening. If they still remain stubborn, I say turn on the news. It’s worse.