"That's a nice-a donut."

Friday, June 10, 2005

Empire of the Sun

In one of director Steven Spielbergs lesser-regarded films, Empire of the Sun, a young Christian Bale (of the upcoming Batman Begins) stars as Jaime (or Jim), a British boy growing up with his well-to-do family in Shanghai, China at the onset of World War II. Jim is rather spoiled (a child of great "luck" and privilege), but is good-natured, inquisitive (sometimes too much), and has a love for military aviation. China has been home to many British expatriates since the 19th Century, but Japanese forces have invaded the country and the Brits are gradually being forced out of their homes. Jim gets lost in a crowd from his mother and father and eventually makes his way home to find that it has been impounded by the imperial Japanese emperor. Hungry and losing hope, Jim eventually comes across Frank and Basie (a phenomenal performance by John Malkovich) who take him under their wing. Soon enough, they all end up at an internment camp composed mostly of British and American civilians. We spend much of the rest of the film here and Jim, without his parents, becomes sort of a de facto life of the camp. He cares for many of the adults, barters with many of them to be sure that everyone has what they need, becomes friends with many, and provides hope when there is almost none.

Spielberg does a good job of telling an interesting story that, while obviously having some moments that tug on the heart strings, does not succumb to blatant or insincere emotionalism - a criticism of some of the director's work. This is a multi-layered story with metaphors, exaggerations, parallel themes, and is even dreamlike. In fact, maybe nothing is what it seems. Could some of this just be the fuzzy memory of a boy, or are these real, traumatic events which must be dealt with in a mature way?

Some of the movie's shots are beautiful and throughout the picture, the acting is first-rate. I never would have guessed that this was Bale's first real acting role; he is onscreen nearly the entire movie and does a marvelous job playing the many emotions that are required of Jim. Music is very important to the movie as well, in particularly an operatic tune that Jim sings a couple times. Without having a clue as to what the words actually mean (it's not in English), I can say that the song (Suo Gan) just seems to fit perfectly. It is solemn, yet uplifting; haunting, but thoughtful; and helps to evoke the naivety and innocence (lost) of childhood.

There are some problems with Empire of the Sun that turn it from being a potentially great movie into simply a good movie. It works on a deeper level, but is explicit about nothing - it requires a very watchful eye to notice the many parallels and similarities between, say, events at the prison camp and Jim's memories of events prior to that. (I think the subtlety of this is why the movie did not receive more critical acclaim upon its release.) Also, I didn't quite see the point of focusing so much on a married couple (including Miranda Richardson) that helped to care for Jim in the camp - some of that could have been cut out to help shorten the movie from its more than 150 minute runtime. Even more so, Frank (Joe Pantoliano) spends much of the film being jealous of and generally disliking Jim. But why? After all, Frank is the one that took Jim in off the street to begin with.

These gripes, however, do little to take away from the point that Empire of the Sun is a fine accomplishment. It is easily overlooked; after all Spielberg has made a career of big, audience-pleasing movies. This is just a little experiment in comparison to many of his hits.

The Verdict: B.

Michael Bentley 3:09 PM

"That's a nice-a donut."

Friday, June 10, 2005

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