London Film Festival – Rescue Dawn

For my final film at the festival I took in something of an oddity – a mainstream Hollywood film directed by a real eccentric German auteur – Werner Herzog. You may recall dear reader that I mentioned this film way back in January as one of the films to look forward to this year so it’s a shame to report that this film is a somewhat flawed curiosity. If you want to see the film then avoid the wikipedia entries as there be spoilers…..

1966, Indo-China, shortly before the skirmishes in Vietnam ignited into a full blown war. Our hero Dieter Dengler, heroically portrayed by Christian Bale is a slightly naïve young air force pilot who is about to embark on his first clandestine mission – an illegal bombing raid deep in Laos. Shot down inside hostile territory, Dieter is captured and transferred to a hellish prison camp where a number of other American servicemen and native dissidents are struggling for survival. The choice is clear – survive and hope a political solution is achieved and all POW’s returned to home soil or brave the guards and the lethal jungle itself on an impossible trek to Thailand.

I can see what attracted Herzog to the material; a single minded, obsessive protagonist, the clash of civilisation against savage, the curious symbiotic relationship between ‘man’ and the natural environment – all themes Herzog has explored before (and indeed he has already made a documentary on this very same story) but this does not reach the same lofty heights of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ or ‘Cobra Verde’. There is one moment toward the end which left me speechless – really didn’t see that coming – but overall this is something of a clichéd survival movie with a disgraceful jingoistic finale that honestly leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I don’t know if Herzog had this imposed by the studio (given that the film has no less than eight executive producers and three ‘normal’ producers) but I wouldn’t be surprised as it certainly has no parallel in any sequence in any of other films he’s made over the past thirty years. A shame….

I’m off to see Wes Anderson in conversation tonight at the BFI to round off this year’s festival, quite an apt finish as his film ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ is the closing night gala picture. I think I’ll catch ’30 Days of Night’ beforehand, a vampire movie for Halloween – perfect….<cue ominous, booming supernatural laugh>….

October 31, 2007 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Bale, Chrstian, Cinema, Dawn, Dieter, Festival, Film, Herzog, London, Movies, Rescue, survival, Vietnam | 1 Comment