I haven't slept for the last 3 days and with good reason.
I decided to watch Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's series The Pacific. I have been meaning to watch this for a while as many of my dearest friends worked on it and a large part of it was shot here in Melbourne.
In the first episode, I found it hard to stop my brain whirring. "Oh I wonder if Glenn planted that coconut palm?, ooh that prosthetic dead body looks like Sean's work, oooh the blood on that shoulder is great, I bet Babz did that, oh Henry's american accent is great, Tom plays crazy so well" and so on.
It's sometimes hard to get lost in something that is littered with so many of your friends.
But that did not last.
Within one episode I was absolutely captured by what is easily touted as one of the most brutal wars in history. I cried a lot and felt physically ill at times.
My knowledge of world war II is pretty standard. I have a basic idea of where the wars were fought, how it ended and what happened to the world as a result. What springs to mind immediately when I think of WWII is the European battles and of course the Holocaust. I was not aware of how brutal the weather conditions were and how under prepared the U.S Soldiers seemed to be.
Being a New Zealander I also learnt about the Pacific wars at school and have watched the standard war docos and seen some great films (Clint Eastwoods Flags Of Our Father's and Letters to Iwo Jima are amazing).
None of that prepared me for how affected I was by this series.
I think what really got me is that when I watch the news now and see pointless wars being fought by American (and Australian) soldiers, I can't help but worry that we will never learn from our mistakes.
I watched these 10 episodes on a war that claimed the lives of literally millions of soldiers, both American and Japanese. I saw young men lose their minds as they partook in brutal massacres of both soldiers and civilians of the pacific islands. I cried as a woman from Okinawa tried to hand her baby to one of the soldiers before we realised she had a bomb strapped to her. She exploded with her child in her arms. No horror movie will ever make me feel so physically sickened.
Wars happen for many, seemingly different reasons. But they're all the same when you get down to it. They all come back to power. Power, it seems, back then was about gaining territory. Power in 2010 seems to be about oil. It's scarier now because we are all in possession of bombs that can flatten whole countries. It's only a matter of time before this power play takes a devastating and final turn. It will only get worse and that leaves me feeling scared.
What also really got me is that even though Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg obviously tried to tell an even and racially respectful reenactment, there was a sense of American pride that left a bad taste in my mouth. In the beginning of the series Tom Hanks tells us how the devastating bombing of Pearl Harbour resulted in the Death of over 2000 Americans. This is all spoken with a haunting score and slow motion shots of the terrible event.
Yet at the end of the series one of the soldiers briefly mentions that the army have let a 'bomb' off over Hiroshima that has forced the Japanese to surrender.
Um. That wasn't just a bomb. It was the ONLY nuclear bomb ever to be let off in the history of the world. A nuclear bomb that resulted in over 150,000 deaths and ongoing illness due to radiation. It was one of the most devastating events in history.
It reminded me that every year we are reminded constantly that Americans lost 3000 citizens in the 9/11 attacks and yet we are never reminded that Iraq has lost over 60,000 civilians (not soldiers) and Afghanistan has lost on average around 3000 civilians a year since the beginning of America's occupation in these countries.
I guess an American life is more valuable.
The Pacific left me feeling sick about the world we live in today. I don't think I want to have anything to do with America. Coming from a person who is obsessed with movies and always dreamed of working in 'Hollywood', I might give it a miss. I can't support a country that excludes itself from the rules it passes down to the rest of the world with a deadly iron fist.
The Pacific is a brilliant production, I do recommend it and am proud of everyone I know who was involved.
Bless the American, Australian, New Zealand and Japanese soldiers who died in the Pacific wars. You were all truly heroic and fought for what mattered to you....whatever that may be.
I decided to watch Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's series The Pacific. I have been meaning to watch this for a while as many of my dearest friends worked on it and a large part of it was shot here in Melbourne.
In the first episode, I found it hard to stop my brain whirring. "Oh I wonder if Glenn planted that coconut palm?, ooh that prosthetic dead body looks like Sean's work, oooh the blood on that shoulder is great, I bet Babz did that, oh Henry's american accent is great, Tom plays crazy so well" and so on.
It's sometimes hard to get lost in something that is littered with so many of your friends.
But that did not last.
Within one episode I was absolutely captured by what is easily touted as one of the most brutal wars in history. I cried a lot and felt physically ill at times.
My knowledge of world war II is pretty standard. I have a basic idea of where the wars were fought, how it ended and what happened to the world as a result. What springs to mind immediately when I think of WWII is the European battles and of course the Holocaust. I was not aware of how brutal the weather conditions were and how under prepared the U.S Soldiers seemed to be.
Being a New Zealander I also learnt about the Pacific wars at school and have watched the standard war docos and seen some great films (Clint Eastwoods Flags Of Our Father's and Letters to Iwo Jima are amazing).
None of that prepared me for how affected I was by this series.
I think what really got me is that when I watch the news now and see pointless wars being fought by American (and Australian) soldiers, I can't help but worry that we will never learn from our mistakes.
I watched these 10 episodes on a war that claimed the lives of literally millions of soldiers, both American and Japanese. I saw young men lose their minds as they partook in brutal massacres of both soldiers and civilians of the pacific islands. I cried as a woman from Okinawa tried to hand her baby to one of the soldiers before we realised she had a bomb strapped to her. She exploded with her child in her arms. No horror movie will ever make me feel so physically sickened.
Wars happen for many, seemingly different reasons. But they're all the same when you get down to it. They all come back to power. Power, it seems, back then was about gaining territory. Power in 2010 seems to be about oil. It's scarier now because we are all in possession of bombs that can flatten whole countries. It's only a matter of time before this power play takes a devastating and final turn. It will only get worse and that leaves me feeling scared.
What also really got me is that even though Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg obviously tried to tell an even and racially respectful reenactment, there was a sense of American pride that left a bad taste in my mouth. In the beginning of the series Tom Hanks tells us how the devastating bombing of Pearl Harbour resulted in the Death of over 2000 Americans. This is all spoken with a haunting score and slow motion shots of the terrible event.
Yet at the end of the series one of the soldiers briefly mentions that the army have let a 'bomb' off over Hiroshima that has forced the Japanese to surrender.
Um. That wasn't just a bomb. It was the ONLY nuclear bomb ever to be let off in the history of the world. A nuclear bomb that resulted in over 150,000 deaths and ongoing illness due to radiation. It was one of the most devastating events in history.
It reminded me that every year we are reminded constantly that Americans lost 3000 citizens in the 9/11 attacks and yet we are never reminded that Iraq has lost over 60,000 civilians (not soldiers) and Afghanistan has lost on average around 3000 civilians a year since the beginning of America's occupation in these countries.
I guess an American life is more valuable.
The Pacific left me feeling sick about the world we live in today. I don't think I want to have anything to do with America. Coming from a person who is obsessed with movies and always dreamed of working in 'Hollywood', I might give it a miss. I can't support a country that excludes itself from the rules it passes down to the rest of the world with a deadly iron fist.
The Pacific is a brilliant production, I do recommend it and am proud of everyone I know who was involved.
Bless the American, Australian, New Zealand and Japanese soldiers who died in the Pacific wars. You were all truly heroic and fought for what mattered to you....whatever that may be.
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