A benchmark

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2016)

It's usually difficult to be unbiased to watch an anti-Japanese movie with nationality of China; it's also not easy for a theme movie to portray a story by presenting what it is supposed to present. The surprise brought by Hacksaw Ridge is it has solved these two difficulties. There's no flattery of leading character, demonization of enemy or sanctification of troops of America, which proves that Hacksaw Ridge is a qualified history film.
I'd like to introduce it to others by dividing it into two parts. The first half is about Doss himself and his faith which keeps struggling in the cracks of others' discrimination and prejudice. For my part, he is indeed a stubborn person, who was not willing to bend down even a little bit, pretend he could carry a rifle, to win the possibility to maintain his faith; even when his boss tried to understand him, his obstinacy still drove him to refuse to touch a gun. Yet on the other side, his peers' distortion of his adhesion also reminds audience of the importance of tolerance: a seemingly coward guy may also be humane to everyone, an introverted person may be good at listening than most people...everyone around has something you don't have. Similarly, from Doss's childhood memory, his father was an asshole who drunk excessively, had violence tendency even left Doss psychological shadow of rifle. However, when Doss was in prison due to his not touching rifle, his father gave him a strong hand to protect what he believed. From these plots we could find that an individual is much more complex than we imagine, and interacts with the environment unavoidably. Thus one's faith and one's keeping his faith is valuable especially under the uncertain background of World War II.
The first half is used to bring audiences' emotion into the resonance with that of Doss, then the second half is about war itself directly. From these cruel shots, the brutality of war has been presented in one hundred percent. This is the key point of a great anti-war movie, battlefield depicted by blood and smoke tells you emotionlessly: this is war, you can lose life in any time and survival is something like winning lottery. Comparing these scenarios to real life, audiences then will cherish this peaceful epoch more gratefully. Also, because of the cruelty in battlefield, Doss's kindness and industriousness bring audiences more impact. Actually not only his dignity, but also his peers' understanding and supporting, though some of them had mocked Doss's faith and regarded him as a coward guy. It feels like multi- aspect humanity shows its valuable side, lighting up a candle in deep night.
The best shot for me is that baptism – I'd like to call it baptism, although for Doss it's just a simple bath. In that shot, sunlight poured downward, lit up countless water drops, that body covered by blood, smoke and dust was washed back to normal, as clean as Doss's soul.
At the end, I want to go back to unbiasedness mentioned at the beginning. Unbiasedness, here, does not mean being sorely neutral. It should be an attitude which makes a movie to be based on reality. Once upon a time, I was unwilling to watch some anti-war works just because they tend to penetrate nationalism to audiences, which should not be conveyed perfunctorily or be regarded to be political correctness. Japanese in Hacksaw Ridge, fortunately, are shaped as person rather than enemy or demon, I wish this can be a benchmark for upcoming works.