Memory and Innocence

Rating: 10/10 (10 March 2006)

At the most superficial level, this movie is everything Spielberg is typically thought to be: masterful, but a little cold and too perfect and unreal and simplistic -- but still more entertaining than most in spite of all that.
Watch a little closer, pay a little more attention, and you realize that this movie isn't that at all. The story happens to be about an English boy in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. But the real subject is memory and experience. It is a true masterpiece, although, like many great works of art, it can trick you by seeming to be straightforward when it is really somewhat subversive. Wrapped up in the Spielberg packaging, the movie hides itself from you if you take it at face value.
And that face value is, as I said, just fine if that's what you are looking for. But if you want to watch it closer, you'll see another, more remarkable picture the second time around.
The performances of all are tremendous. Christian Bale is extraordinary beyond words. One of my all-time favorites.