Hell in the Pacific (1968)

Let's be realistic.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's a brave and impudent movie -- just two great stars, Marvin and Mifune, one Japanese and the other an American pilot. The score is by the inventive and sonorous Lalo Schifrin, the photography by the seasoned craftsman, Conrad Hall. There's mutual harassment at first, sometimes comically expressed, as when Marvin pees on Mifune below. Ultimately, the two men realize they must cooperate to survive, but they're overwhelmed by the larger picture of the war around them.It's curious piece of movie making. Two enemies isolated on a rainforest-covered lava lump sticking out of an indifferent ocean. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, chiefly because I wanted to see where it was going. The second time around is a sluggish trek through some highly stylized material.If you haven't seen it, you'll probably enjoy it. There is a contrast of some magnitude in the personalities of Mifune and Marvin. Mifune is angry, all business, proud. Marvin is an importuning elf, slipping here and there through the shrubbery, begging for water and spitefully destroying Mifune's primitive fish net.

Lee Marvin & Toshiro Mifune play a downed World War II pilot and a Navy Commander who are stranded on a Pacific island during the war. Both men of course distrust and hate each other, trying desperately to survive and thwart the enemy. As time passes, they find that, if they plan to survive, they will have to come to some sort of a truce. They both have times when they captured the other, but did not kill, which teaches them to begin to get along.Interesting, well acted and directed(John Boorman) film is highly allegorical, that is both men represent two superpowers who can either learn to get along, or kill each other. The ending will either come as a bitter irony, or a misstep, though I lean toward irony; either way, it is memorable.

Hell in the Pacific (1968)A great concept--two men are lost together on an island in the Pacific. The war is over, but prejudices remain, and one man is Japanese, one American. They don't share a language, so there is basically no dialog. There is only survival.How do you make a feature length movie about this without stretching the idea thin, without boring the viewer, without resorting to clichés of makeshift boats and coconut to eat? You don't. The movie is ambitious over very little, and if it seems impressive in some isolated, focused way, it is still a slow go.And you kind of know what the progression of events is going to be, as common human needs rise above nationalist myopia. What keeps it afloat at all is the odd combination of the quirky boorish stereotype American thug, Lee Marvin, who is not his best in this situation (but who has his own following--I like him in his crime films a lot) and the most famous Japanese actor of the period, the Kurosawa standard bearer Toshiro Mifune (who is an archetype of the vigorous, smart Japanese male).I have to admit I didn't really like the most recent parallel production, "Castaway," at least not the island parts (which everyone I know loved). In all these cases you depend on the acting, the actors themselves, to make it special. And for some that might be enough. It's a unique movie, for sure, a kind of old Hollywood hanger-on in the new Hollywood era. John Boorman had just finished the remarkable "Point Blank" with Marvin, and would soon work on "Deliverance," and all three have a masculine quality of rising about a hostile world and making it on your own terms.Finally, if you do get through it all, the last five minutes is important--clumsy and improbable and sensationalist after all that preceded, but important. It tries at last to talk about the difficulty of really understanding someone else, personally and culturally, and about the madness and indifference of war. It's 1968, after all.

Its Difficult with a capital "F" to write a review of this movie. You think "F" stands for frustrating.. guess again. Allow me to explain why this is a a TREMENDOUSLY good movie. Because in its haunting simplicity are revealed the summed up characters of "AWKWARDLY LOOMING NATIONS". Got that? Your character "versus" my character.. YOU AND ME.. right up there on the silver screen. And my my.. ain't we just a lot alike you and me. In this movie we find our daily bread.. my battle with you, whom I have to put up with and tolerate. WHY WONT YOU DO WHAT I WANT YOU TO??? FOR GODS SAKES! What is at stake here is Satre's principle (people are hell). You are my hell. Even when you do what I want you to.. you are my hell. Does man really enjoy suffering? Do YOU... ENJOY.. SUFFERING? Are you ever really satisfied with what you have? Oh yeah? for how long. I see in this movie gobs of really powerful principles at work. LOVE Isn't ENOUGH! I hate to, and am unable to admit I really need you! GOOD GOD MAN! This movie is an exploration into SELF via these two vessel SELVES -> Marvin and the jap guy. I mean I want to scream at the jap and tell him GET REAL WILL YOU? STOP PLAY ACTING! CANT YOU ACT NORMAL! I want to scream at the religious fanatic clowns of this world and tell them the same. GET REAL! STOP PLAY ACTING! Cant you see you're living a role assigned to you by some very rich people that are making a living off of your sweat? and I hate you because you don't see it!!! But how do I wake you up? We live in a society where the people who do the least work make the most money. NO! I Don't NEED SCHOOLING TO KNOW WHAT INSANITY IS. And then as George Carlin put it so aptly "my god has a bigger stick than your god".. which translates to.. Im right you're wrong therefore kindly do what i want you to. But these are power plays.. and roles assigned to US by others like cheap clothes. Yeah.. those clothes you're wearing right now. Oh Mister King.. your "erpidermus" is showing. The king who wore no clothes. YEAH.. I SPELL EPIDERMIS-- ERPIDERMUS.Question is.. what do to about it? And so men go to war for a wealthy few who can pay there way out of war. A long time ago.. you could bribe a priest, rabbi, guru whatever... to give you holy passage clear to the next life.. AND problem is YOU STILL CAN TODAY!!!! Its called a democracy, a monarchy, a 3rd world.. its all the same. POWER PLAYS. I power play you because I don't want to face the self in me that id rather not see. This is what is written in invisible ink here my friends.. right here in this movie. "Its here.. it really is" ring a bell? This is what is written between the lines.. the words that are not spoken and yet.. are spoken here.Here we see our relationship with our self and our relationship with our other self.. YOU. PEOPLE. You who are a part of me.. (you who read this) and from whom I cannot escape nor would I want to. Sooner or later, in this life or the next, we will be here again on this island. You and me.. and we will war.. you and I.So.. what do two men do, who find themselves ""alone"" on an island? do? See those quotation marks.. take a good look at that. So there you are, you're with yourself and with your "inevitable" other self... other people. HELL IN THE PACIFIC IS EVERYDAY LIFE.. IT IS HAPPENING NOW. YOU ARE ON THAT ISLAND M'FRIEND.. AND IM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU JUST WAITING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE A LIVING HELL OR YOU MINE. But wait.. little lord Bush.. and he's really gonna make our lifes hell.. oh gee I just love to suffer! WHATS THAT?? oH M'GOD.. Our Lord King George Bush (who by fraudelent means stole the presidency from al gore.. yeah him) has now transmorphed into Lord King Obama! (a.k.a. oh hell they won't mind my fake birth cerificate obama baby) hmm interesting trick! Great THEATRICS. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?