Review of South Pacific (1958) by Daniel K — 21 Dec 2009

2: Odd picture. It doesn't quite seem to fit with other musicals either from this era or from earlier or later decades. It reminded me most of musicals like Brigadoon or Finian's rainbow for some reason, despite the fact that there really was nothing supernatural about the picture.

I kept expecting something odd to occur involving the fantastic Bali Ha'i island though. The manner in which it was shot and referred to left this viewer suspecting there was something unnatural about it.

This is one place the story fell flat. Don't let your viewer expect something fantastic and then let them down by having it remain relatively ordinary. The first couple hours of the film left much to be desired in my opinion.

It moves at a fairly glacial pace, which one imagines could mean the characters and story would be rich and developed. However, the opposite is the case. The story doesn't go much of anywhere; the characters are fairly flat; and the world in which they inhabit is terribly artificial, even by Hollywood musical standards of the day.

I felt like there was no sense of place. The last place I thought of was the south pacific. The music was decent and the last thirty minutes or so of the picture picked up a bit as something relevant and interesting finally happened.

The color filters were absolutely ridiculous for the most part. Apparently the director was pissed about how Fox handling this as well. They end up being extremely distracting and they look absolutely awful.

The quality of the source material varied perhaps more widely than in any other film I've ever seen. It was blatantly obvious on Blu-Ray as well. The dialogue devoted to racism was perhaps the most interesting and unnerving portion of the film.

I didn't entirely buy the happy conversion that occurred in the end. It seemed like the filmmakers were merely paying lip service to the issue. There were still numerous underlying and unexplored racist and sexist currents running throughout the picture: prostitution, the selling of underage Asian women to wealthy western military men, the anonymous background roles virtually all of the Asians took in the film, with the exception of the young girl being sold and the mother we were meant to laugh at and be a bit disgusted by.

I wouldn't be too disappointed if this particular cultural artifact were forgotten.