Jolie fails to encapsulate spiritual journey
Louis Zamperini punched a shark on the nose and lived to tell the tale.
This insane incident happened during the harrowing 47 days he spent adrift in the Pacific during World War II with two other downed US airmen. Their raft was sinking (they were working furiously to patch it up), they were being strafed by the Japanese and to the circling sharks the emaciated Americans looked like lean cuisine.
This is just one of the jaw-dropping incidents in Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling biography of Zamperini, a Forrest Gump-ish odyssey in which we follow the lightly built son of Italian immigrants through his early track career which culminated in him meeting Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics, his heroics as a bombardier in the Pacific war, his survival at sea and the two years of Dante-esque punishments he endured as a PoW.
The famous Louis Zamperini v shark bout didn't make it into Angelina Jolie's polished big-screen version of Unbroken probably because everyone would think it a bit of outrageous Hollywood hyperbole. And besides there was already enough amazing material for several wartime epics.
However, Jolie and her ace team of screenwriters (among them Joel and Ethan Coen) have been remarkably faithful to Hillenbrand's book, which was written with the close co-operation of Zamperini. It is an astonishing record of suffering, resilience and survival that puts to shame the generation who struggle to cope when they're de-friended on Facebook.
Unfortunately, in focusing on the brutality endured by Zamperini it passes over the true meaning of his life - the psychological damage he suffered after being liberated, the drinking, the nightmares and the obsession with killing the sadistic Japanese officer who inflicted so much pain and his redemption and release after meeting evangelist Billy Graham.
Whether it was the length of Zamperini's story or the filmmakers' lack of comfort with religion and their hero becoming a born-again Christian, it has left this otherwise impeccably crafted, beautifully acted movie without a soul, without a sense of his inner journey (The Railway Man is a less- good movie overall but it digs deeper).
Still it is an extraordinary story and second-time feature film director Jolie handles the material well, allowing the monumentality of the events to carry the emotion rather than amping up the things in the manner of an action- hungry male director.
Working with the great Roger Deakins (best known for his work with the Coen brothers) and an expert design and effects team, Jolie immerses us in the life the times of Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), cutting back and forth between his wartime heroics and his earlier brush with greatness on the track (Hitler was so impressed with Louis' final lap at the 1936 games he insisted on shaking his hand).
After spending six weeks at sea (enough of a story to make a movie in its own right) Zamperini falls into the hands of the Japanese and becomes the whipping boy of the cruel and perverse Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who singled out the one-time track star for special mistreatment because of his celebrity.
Astutely, Jolie cast the charismatic, androgynous Japanese rock star Miyavi in the role of Watanabe and he's perfect, channelling the elegance and imperiousness of his stage persona into this most twisted of characters, a sadist who later admitted to getting a sexual thrill from beating prisoners.
Equally well cast is O'Connell who has the same physique as the small-ish, wiry Zamperini. So instead of the normally short Japanese comically lording over much taller Americans, British or Australian prisoners Miyavi's imposing Watanabe looms over Zamperini, a gorgeously groomed god-like figure who treats the prisoners as playthings, not humans.
While Jolie is to be admired in not going soft on the Japanese and their brutality in the cause of political correctness (not surprisingly this breathtakingly graphic film has caused problems in Japan) I would have liked to seen a little less savagery and a little more of spirited rebelliousness of Zamperini.
The young Zamperini was a troublemaker, a street fighter and thief, qualities (according to Hillenbrand's biography) that helped him survive the deprivations of the prison camps and endure the punishment meted out by Watanabe. Zamperini the rabble-rouser who was headed for jail became Zamperini the resourceful, quick-thinking survivor.
Even with Jolie's failure to encapsulate Zamperini's spiritual journey and his impish personality - you wish she wasn't quite so admiring of her subject who she all but casts in bronze - the film has an accumulative power, so much so we so that by the stirring climax we are ready to punch Watanabe on the nose, or that damned shark.
