John Rabe
Whenever I have a huge backlog of movies I need to write about, I tend to disregard the chronology of the films I have seen, and I notice that I have a tendency to write about bad movies first (because I am not as afraid of writing a bad posting and thus feeling guilty about it), and I also tend to prioritize those that have made an impact on me, regardless of whether the movie was actually good or not. “Les Valseuses” for example is objectively a better movie than “John Rabe”, but ultimately it made less of an impact on me.
Just today, I have stumbled upon some articles about “A time to live and a time to die” by Douglas Sirk, which I started researching after seeing this wonderful screenshot, in which the main characters make love in between the ruins of war. (By the way, feel free to scroll down to the only, but lengthy comment on Lilo Pulver. I think it describes another one of the greatest problems of cinema.) Wikipedia claims that he was a very unpopular director among contemporary critics, but today, his films seem to be extremely popular among movie makers. No matter what time it is, melodrama is never popular, but Godard and the likes would love it. Considering some serious problems the “John Rabe” movie has, and my personal reservations against the director, I doubt this film will ever become critically acclaimed, but I can see how this might change over the time.
At least the reviews cannot be worse than they are now: Melodramatic, overly emotional music at places where you don’t feel anything, stupid dialogue, plot holes, unnecessary side plots, the main character was a nazi, the nazi flag appears too often in the film (!)… there barely is anything good about the film if you listen to the critics. When it comes to me, I just want to snap at them “Try saving a life for a change or look into a dead person’s eyes, and perhaps you can come back and talk again”. I know why I rarely read any movie reviews at all.
On the other hand, when I read the Wikipedia article on the movie, I want to vomit as well. “Japan has banned the movie” – perhaps I’m just overly sensitive, but this particular expression made me alarmed; and from its sources, it obviously was some idiotic Chinese who wrote that. Do I see a neutrality alert on the article? Of course not. It is so incredibly sad how all the sides, Germans, Chinese and Japanese at the same time are so incredibly ridiculous when it comes to the person of John Rabe: The Japanese want to ignore it, the Chinese want to instrumentalize the Nanking Massacre against the Japanese and the Germans are either trying to feel better about themselves or – which is the general consensus among the critics – want more John Rabe-bashing in the form of “But he was a nazi!” So what if he was a nazi if he actually stood there and saved a bunch of people’s (uhh, say, realistically it’s something between 10,000 and 200,000) lives? Civil courage is something that Germans seem to lack even today, or so it seems to me. Personally I think braveness or the willingness to save someone’s life is an immensely valuable human character trait, perhaps the most noble of all. To me, it does not matter if you are German, Chinese, Japanese or a nazi, or whatever. As a human, you are the same, and if you are able to do that, you deserve a lot of recognition.
Neutrality really is the big problem here. As for myself, I know perfectly well that besides my aforementioned belief that John Rabe possessed the best human character trait possible, there barely is anything I can stand be neutral about myself. As a historical person, my incapability of being neutral applies to John Rabe more than anyone ever could. Although I don’t have the problems with nazism that a lot of Germans have (the feelings of shame and guilt that is), I have a very strong opinion about nazism (Germans should stop feeling so shameful and guilty, especially the post 1945 generations). As Chinese, I have always, always felt extremely shocked how the Nanjing massacre is so incredibly unknown to Westerners, and as a woman, I must admit that I find it difficult to get over the fact that Comfort Women even existed. I’m not that much of a feminist and I can kind of understand rapes during wartime, but those organized brothels were over the top.
It also did not help that I have randomly read a German article (I feel horrible for not being able to find it again) in which they described a few of the atrocities that John Rabe noted down in his book. The worst and most memorable was the description of women who were raped and left on the street with burning objects inserted into their bodies. There were quite a few other things, and it made me a little scared of the film. Luckily the worst thing they showed was the decapitation of some Chinese soldiers, because honestly, I think I am still a little too weak to see a ‘serious’ rape in a movie. Especially not when the woman is then half-burnt on the street with limbs and breasts cut off.
I don’t want to delve into the film’s few weaknesses, but rather would like to point out how much I have enjoyed it myself. I think the director is an idiot for changing the history so much and for not really doing a good job at subdueing his melodrama a little. I also was pissed at what a happy love life he had with his wife. However, he managed to get the main things right. I think his portrait of Rabe is quite a suitable one, and after all, he never tried to catch how Rabe was a nazi and a slightly snobbish Siemens factory head. On top of that, one cannot say the story was not engaging; totally taken out of context, the movie itself had an enjoyable storyline in which even the side stories were suspenseful.
Finally, I was surprised at how much I liked the few funny scenes in the movie. “If 100,000 Chinese people can fit in, then 200,000 Chinese people can fit in as well!” Plus, I think one needs to appreciate the irony with which John Rabe made his Chinese workers stand in line and do the Hitler salute. Surely the jokes were not Billy Wilder quality, but some of them made me laugh actually. The way Dr. Wilson and Rabe insulted each other throughout the beginning of the film was quite brilliant at least. I too want a friendship that has started with insults. Now let’s see, who could I go on insulting…
I have mentioned the melodrama so many times without even saying anything about myself. Well, the film was touching to some degree; actually, given my background, it was incredibly touching. But ultimately there was only one scene that felt very powerful in quite an ironic way: When the Japanese were dropping some bombs over Nanjing, Rabe ran out to his car and hid people under an overly large nazi flag. It was beautiful how the flag saved them, and how the people were overjoyingly swingin the flag around after the bombing was over for the night. It was that “oh wow” feeling that will remain more memorable for me than most other films I have seen lately.
With some really well-known actors (Daniel Brühl!), even some Japanese ones (Akira Emoto, Teruyuki Kagawa), and a background that I hope will become more well-known, this is probably one of the very few films that I kind of care for. I can see that “John Rabe” will become a success in China, and I suppose this movie actually needs it. Compared to the tens of millions that your average Hollywood movie costs, it should be feasible to get that money back despite John Rabe’s notorious obscurity in Germany.
To end my tl;dr posting, I can only say that I feel unable to recommend this movie although I thoroughly enjoyed it myself and found the story to be rather engaging. On the other hand, I really want to promote it, especially since it’s better than the reviews make you believe. Note to self: Do not read movie reviews anymore.
