It's been a couple of months. Not that I haven't stopped watching movies (watched about 30 over the school holidays), but more that I have been absorbing a lot of information recently about film in general. I have been watching a lot of "art" movies, and I have been reading a lot of books on film, all of which has lead me to conclude that my reviews and criticism add very little to anything in terms of film criticism, not that I had any pretensions about this earlier.
I will be coming back to this to develop my writing skills, and to create focussing points for my heated discussions about movies with friends. I probably won't comment on all the movies I have watched in the mean-time, though I will come back to some.
Onto this movie, my third Herzog film, after "Fitzcarraldo", and "Even Dwarfs Started Small". Interesting that my third would be his most accessible film, instead of the first film by him that I watched. But make no mistake, Herzog is a man who does not make easy-to-digest movies, even at his most accessible. Rescue Dawn is the tale of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale), a German-American pilot involved in a top-secret mission bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail in the early stages of the Vietnam War. This is also a studio film, produced and distributed by MGM.
He is shot down on his first mission, and stays on the run for a while before being captured by the Viet Cong. Once in the prison camp, he befriends the fellow inmates, a mix of Vietnamese and other US pilots. He forms a close bond with Duane (Steve Zahn), who has been in the prison camp for a year and a half. He then formulates a plan to escape by stealing the guards guns when they go to get food by breaking out of their handcuffs and chains using a nail. From there the group get very aggressive, with Eugene DeBruin (Jeremy Davies), who is mentally unbalanced and was against the plan from the start, stealing guns and shoes, but not getting any shoes for other people. This leads to Dieter and Duane trying to make it to Thailand on their own.
Their increasingly depressing tale of survival through the jungle, while Dieter desperately tries to signal US planes, though being shot at as he looks like Viet Cong from up high, reaches a very depressing end with Duane being killed by villagers and Dieter at the end of his wit signalling a plane. But at that point things take a turn for the better as he is rescued by US soldiers, leading to a very sentimental ending, a little unexpected to those who know anything about Werner Herzog.
What makes this phenomenal tale all the better is that it is based on a true story, which Herzog followed earlier in this 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." Liberties are taken (he was captured twice and the plan had been hatched before he arrived), but the integrity of it remains the same. His penchant for stunning vistas, shot on location, isn't removed when working in the studio system.
He uses the Thailand jungle to great effect, particularly in the demoralising section after the break-out. The cinematography is stunningly effective, shying away from the intensified continuity that is the hallmark of studio films, and the location looks fantastic on film, like in all Herzog films. The Steadicam shots through the jungle are highlights, as are the crane shots of the prison and in the jungle.
The writing is well-paced, telling the story well over the two-hour run-time. Dialogue is often sparse and whispered, with Herzog preferring to let the actions speak for the characters as much as what they say. The ending is perhaps a bit out of character, as he gives the big sentimental ending that Hollywood so often has, complete with text at the end explaining what happened to him in the future. The film is so well-paced though, that the ending feels deserved, if a little over-the-top.
The plot has been done before in movies, but I have never seen one that has been quite so effective. The vistas and story-telling combine very effectively to create a tale that strikes the right balance between depressing and up-lifting. Two hours is a long time to fill with quite a sparse story, but you never really feel bored during watching it.
Overall this would be a 4.5/5 for me, a brilliant film by Herzog, who comes into the studio system making a film that is clearly made on his terms. My gripe with the ending is the main thing holding it back from a 5/5
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