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Since 1996 |
Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready....
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Nanking (documentary) Narrators: Woody Harrelson, Stephen Dorff, Mariel Hemingway and Jurgen Prochnow Directors: Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman Scriptwriters: Elizabeth Bentley, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman Composer: Philip Marshall ThinkFilm Partially subtitled No rating Running Length: 88 minutes www.ThinkFilm.com Americans remember the horrors of World War II as beginning in 1941 with Pearl Harbor. However, China had an invasion by Japan in the summer of 1937. The countryside around Nanking was taken by Japanese soldiers, who violently pillaged their way to Nanking, which was then systematically decimated, inhabitants, too. In this documentary, actors, including Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway, wear clothing of the 1937 period, as they face the camera and speak commentary from people who lived through the Nanking invasion. Interspersed with actors dialogue, are interviews from survivors who were children at that time. The horrors of war are told of parents bayoneted before the eyes of the children, rapes and murders and systematic bombings that destroyed whole city blocks. Why? It is simply explained that Japan needed more land and there it was, the whole of China before them. Citizens of Nanking had suspected for years that Japan might invade, so they had underground shelters built in their gardens, with hatch doors of woven reeds and branches as camouflage. Eventually, when people had to flee to the city, a Safe Zone was established, similar to a refugee camp where thousands of people stayed. Nanking had a continental culture within the population, and there were Germans friendly to the Chinese, living and working there. One German business man was John Rabe (Jurgen Prochnow), who had Nazi affiliations, but sheltered Chinese and later was in prison for telling what he knew of Nanking. Mariel Hemingway portrays Minnie Vautrin (actually of the Midwest) who operated a school for girls and tried to protect the young girls from Japanese soldiers. There is black and white film footage of bombing raids and the aftermath. Some descriptions by survivors of trying to save family members is harrowing. Using a bayonet on a child is calmly spoken of by one man, who didn’t know how to protect his mother and baby brother. A former Japanese soldier tells of killing Chinese men by a river. “Nanking” brings us information on an invasion that few of this generation may know about. Unfortunately, in any war, the ground rules for civilians can be forgotten. Copyright 2008 Marie Asner Submitted 3/19/08 
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