By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22604077
City of Life and Death - (2009) - China
Affecting and extremely depressing film about what is known as the Rape of Nanking. What is unexpected though is the sympathetic treatment the Japanese sometimes get. I remember reading about this - after the Japanese take the city a humanitarian 'safe zone' is erected by Nazi official John Rabe and various British and Australian aid workers. It was thought that the Japanese would respect Rabe's authority, (Nazi Germany and Japan were allies at the time,) but constant Japanese incursions bring the massacre and rape into this leaky commune. Eventually Rabe is ordered to go back to Germany due to the obvious conflict of interest. Some of the Japanese feel a great deal of shame and distress over what their compatriots have done.
Black and white cinematography turns this into a vivid nightmare - there are many instances where it feels we are dreaming. When the Japanese and Chinese forces meet just inside the walls of the city, you expect conflict to erupt. Instead, the Chinese try to flee while the Japanese try to obstruct them. There's a roiling mass of humanity - death will be the result after all, just by crushing instead of gunfire. Later a Japanese soldier accidentally shoots women and children in hiding, and is broken by this - his compatriots trying to interfere with his dogged suicide attempt. It was this treatment of Japanese innocence lost that made me angry at one point, but by the end of the film I felt the events were very accurately portrayed. For a Chinese production, which had been painstakingly examined by Chinese censors, the balance is remarkable.
In the end I felt more depressed by this as opposed to excited about finding a great new film. I can't find much wrong with it, but be warned. This one isn't out to shock with graphic depictions of war, it's more of a human drama. Even though it ends on a slightly positive note, I felt some of it was about how humanity flourishes in an individual but completely breaks down once a mob is formed. I need to watch something uplifting lest I give up on humanity altogether.
7/10