Review of Nanking (2007) by Trent B — 23 Nov 2009

This is a movie everyone should see. This movie will mess you up. It won't make it onto my top anything lists despite scoring higher than many films on those lists and that's because the movie truly is in a league of its own. Being a documentary and due to the content it explores I decided it would not be fair to put it next to fictional or fictionalized stories. It would be unfair to all parties. Usually I am reluctant to watch even Holocaust movies because of how angry and sad they make me. None of those begin to compare to how much Nanking messed me up. I consider myself a pretty strong minded and strong willed individual and this movie nearly had me balling by the end.

The way in which it is presented is particularly powerful. I think this may be the best unintentional case for pacifism there is. This review will be entirely inadequate to convincing any to see it who are not sure or against seeing it. There are so many emotions I felt during the course of the presentation that I can't begin to describe how this film is challenging and changing my perspective even now. One particular emotion that is most troubling to me from this film is a confusion about how to react to a Nazi using his nationalism and the swastika to scare off Japanese soldiers from murdering and raping innocent civilians.

The movie is not anti-Japan. I did not come out with any contempt for the Japanese soldiers or Japan. I am not even tempted to say that the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide some measure of retribution for the atrocities committed in Nanking. I was a pacifist going into this movie and am all the more convinced coming out that no one wins in war. There are no victors or righteous governments in the world. There are only oppressors and oppressed and the line between those is very blurry indeed.