Films that demonstrate the folly of political violence as a means for resolving conflict and/or show the superiority of nonviolent political conflict resolution.
FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING DEPICTS NORTHERN IRELAND AT ITS WORST The title of the film Fifty Dead Men Walking, as explained at the end of the film, refers to the number of British police and soldiers whose lives were saved by Martin McGartland (played by Jim Sturgess), who spied for the British while working undercover […]
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THE ONLY GOOD NAZI IS A DEAD NAZI, ACCORDING TO THE SARDONIC INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS World War II films about Nazis continue to attract attention by demonstrating various aspects of the struggle that have escaped public attention. Then there’s Inglourious Basterds, a retake of a 1978 Italian movie, directed by Quentin Tarantino. With many subliminal references
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Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen), directed by Ole Christian Madsen, is a biopic of the most famous members of the Danish resistance to the German occupation of World War II–Bent Faurschou-Hviid (Flame) and Jorgen Haagen Schmith (Citron). President Harry Truman posthumously awarded them the Medal of Freedom in 1951. The film demonstrates the ambiguity
The Russians reached Berlin first and remained for occasional raids to wipe out lingering Nazi resistance. Most of their idle time was spent eating, sleeping, and turning the city into a whorehouse. In A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma—Eine Frau in Berlin), directed by Max Fäberböck, the women of Berlin find protectors and try to turn
THE HURT LOCKER MAY LEAVE YOU NASEOUS ABOUT WAR Directed by Kathryn Bigelow to be as realistic as possible of the combat experienced by Americans in the Iraq War, The Hurt Locker focuses primarily on a bomb squad in 2004 as the insurgency was trying to annoy GIs as if an embedded journalist were there.
GRAN TORINO IS A CLASSIC TRAGICOMEDY Directed by Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino focuses on interaction between Walt Kowalski (played by the director) and the Hmong community in Detroit. When the film begins, there is a funeral of Kowalski’s spouse presided over by youthful Father Jancovich (played by Christopher Carley). During the reception at Kowalski’s house,
STOP-LOSS FOCUSES ON 12 PERCENT OF AMERICAN TROOPS Titles at the end of Stop-Loss inform filmviewers that 81,000 of the 650,000 American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq have been given “stop-loss” orders. In the movie, squad leader Brandon King (played by Ryan Philippe) receives such an order after 150 combat missions that he thought
REDACTED PROVIDES A HAND-HELD VIEW OF BLOGGERS & RAPISTS On July 7, 2006, two American soldiers raped Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a fourteen-year-old girl in Samarra, and killed the rest of her family in cold blood. An Army report of the incident is largely redacted to hide the identity of the soldiers, their victims, and
O JERUSALEM CRIES OUT FOR PEACE BETWEEN ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIANS Nearly a docudrama, O Jerusalem begins at New York in 1946, when Said Chahine (played by Said Taghmaoui) and his Jewish friend Bobby Goldman (played by JJ Feild) are happily enjoying each other’s company. When the British mandate appears to be at an end,
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH PORTRAYS AMERICA MEETING A WATERLOO In the Valley of Elah, directed by Paul Haggis, is a combination of Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) but focuses on the Iraq War. One day, Hank Deerfield (played by Tommy Lee Jones) receives a telephone call from
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