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consider movies like the Australian World War II
film "Kokoda" a gem. The treat of such a
movie lies in the opportunity to experience the
war, of which I am unendingly fascinated with,
from a perspective I had never seen before. Having
been weaned on
Hollywood
's American-centric fare, it's easy to forget that
the war was, as the name implies, a world
effort. In "Kokoda", we follow a small
band of irregular Australian solders, nicknamed
"chocos" (or "chocolate
soldiers") by the Australian regular army
(AIF) for their less than stellar performances on
the battlefield. The film marks the Japanese
invasion of
New Guinea
in 1942, the closest Japanese forces ever came to
invading
Australia
, before being repelled at Kokoda by the poorly
regarded, poorly armed, poorly trained,
undermanned, and mostly untested chocos.
Much of the film is told from
the myopic POV of a small group of chocos as they
guard "the track", a stretch of dirt
road that runs through Kokoda's massive, insect
and disease-ridden forestry. After an initial
encounter with ghostly Japanese elite forces (one
of them literally appears behind a choco and
slices his throat), the group ends up wandering
around Kokoda's dense jungles, unsure of where
they are going, or why. Meanwhile, the Japanese
continue to attack the rest of the Australian
forces, slaughtering their way through Aussie and
the island's indigenous population on their march
to
Australia
. Outnumbered 10 to 1, the chocos didn't have a
chance in hell. Luckily for
Australia
, no one told them that.
Much of the film's action
comes from the harsh, natural climate of Kokoda
itself, as it attempts to drown, swallow, and
disease
Australia
's protectors as well as its invaders, showing
little regard for the human it is trying to snuff
out of existence. At one point, one of the choco's
boots literally comes undone, forcing him to
endure on foot for the rest of the way. The men
are constantly besieged by diarrhea, resulting in
a rather creative adjustment to one's pants with
the aid of a knife. Much of "Kokoda" is
like that, focusing much of its running time on
the battle between man and nature rather than man
against man. While the chocos engage in skirmishes
with the overrunning Japanese every now and then,
it is Kokoda itself that is their greatest battle.
Curiously, while the native
Aussies seem terribly unprepared for the climates
of Kokoda, the Japanese seems shockingly
unbothered by it. Surely, nothing in
Japan
could have prepared them for this, and yet the
Japanese seem almost like natives compared to the
muddy, bloody, and dysentery-plague Aussies. Of
course much of this can be put on the filmmakers
wishing to make the Japanese appear to be an
invincible force, which would in turn make the
Aussie's victory at Kokoda all the more dramatic.
Still, one can't help but be mildly amused by the
portrayals. It's akin to Japanese tourist getting
lost in
Harlem
, but instead of becoming disoriented, they
instead easily adopt OG personalities and begin
listening to gangsta rap.
Like most contemporary war
films, war in "Kokoda" is, indeed, hell.
Were the Japanese really this brutal? To answer
that question, one only need ask the Chinese about
Nanking
during World War II. You haven't seen what a real
massacre looks like until you've seen the Japanese
Imperial Army in action during the Second World
War. These guys put the "mass" in
"mass murder", and the phrase
"Geneva Convention protection" probably
translated into Japanese as, "
Geneva
is a nice city to visit if you get the
chance."
The script by director
Alister Grierson and co-writer John Lonie uses a
pair of brothers, Jack and Max (Jack Finsterer and
Simon Stone, respectively) as our "in"
on the story. The result is not entirely
successful, as "Kokoda" is a 90-minute
movie, and the film's pace is much too hurried for
deep characterization. By the time the chocos are
in the thick of it, and racing through the jungle
for survival against the advancing Japanese horde,
it's hard to keep track of who is who. Only after
the ranks have thinned significantly does it
become obvious that our lead is Jack, the older of
the two brothers, and his steely determination to
save his brother at all costs surfaces. Travis
McMahon, as the battle-hardened Darko, also stands
out, but I really couldn't tell you who any of the
other characters are. Maybe it's all the mud and
blood and jungle fatigues...
As war films go,
"Kokoda" has problems. It's not as
action-packed as most contemporary war movies. If
judged by the standards of, say, "Saving
Private Ryan" -- or perhaps, the more
aesthetically similar "Thin
Red Line" -- "Kokoda" comes up
short in the "stuff blows up real good"
department. Stuff does blow up, but not all that
well. Alister Grierson is a first-time feature
film director, and it shows. The movie approaches
its human side well enough, but the war moments
are competent, but not excellent. Still, as the
film isn't about the battles, but rather the human
will to survive put up against a great and
unyielding test provided by the elements of
Kokoda, this lacking surface element of the film
can be forgiven.
Overall, "Kokoda"
makes for interesting viewing. Kokoda was the
closest the Australians ever really got to
defending the homeland from invaders, and it was
the first time the Japanese were pushed back in
defeat in the war, so the battle itself is a major
landmark in the war effort against the Axis
Powers. Grierson has clearly made it clear that
the human moments are his primary concern, and in
that respect he succeeds in telling the story he
wanted to tell. A more polished film director
might have paid more attention to the details of
the film's battles, but then it might not have
been the same movie.
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