Brilliant and unforgettable - world's first impressionist action film!

Rating: 10/10 (10 February 2008)

Michael Bay is known for applying his astonishingly fertile imagination to producing gripping, pulse-pounding cinematic action. PEARL HARBOR delivers all this and more because, unlike most of Bay's films, much of the movie has a mysterious, poetic quality. It actually has the unmistakable feel of a tale told from memory ... that sense of days gone by, and long-remembered. The director interviewed a large number of survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack before making the film and screened it for them before it was released. Unlike most American film critics, they found the movie to be powerful and very true to what they felt about their experiences. The key word here is "felt". While the film - other than the battle scenes - is not meant to be taken as a literal portrayal, it is remarkably true, it seems, to the inner, emotional experience. American film critics have always had trouble relating to abstraction - probably because the American film tradition itself is so deeply rooted in "wrought iron" realism. But the critics and viewers who have dumped on this fine work have really missed out on a significant and insightful creation. The core subject of PEARL HARBOR is the way events in the early 1940s plucked a generation of young people out of their peaceful lives and forced them - almost instantaneously - to enter adulthood. They were called upon to sacrifice - to become heroes - to die for a way of life they would ultimately have to deny to themselves. Bay's work here is brilliant and compelling. For once, he devotes his considerable genius for creating powerful images to a higher purpose - and, for the viewer who responds to this, the film lives on in the mind through these magnificent images. During the battle sequence, there is one particular shot of an American flag that serves perfectly as a metaphor for what happened on that fateful day. Though many of the details people have scoffed at are, in fact, authentic, this film is nowhere close to being a docudrama. PEARL HARBOR rather speaks the language of archetypes and leaves you with its powerful and memorable imagery. Most importantly, it is a great, moving, unforgettable monument to the inner experiences of the people who actually lived the epic drama of World War II.