TIFF 2009: City of Life and Death

When I think about City of Life and Death, two scenes stand out in my mind. In the first scene, the camera follows a Japanese soldier as he walks up a hill and looks down. The camera continues to move upward to show what the soldier sees on the field below: the bodies of Chinese POWs that the Japanese troops have just killed in a mass execution. The second stand-out scene shows a firing squad execution of a Chinese man, softly focused in the background, while a Japanese soldier’s face is shown in the foreground. The composition of the frame is phenomenal.

Both scenes depict horrible events in a visually stylish way, which pretty much sums up the movie for me. The film is about the Nanking Massacre, an event that took place just before WWII. The Japanese Army invaded the city in China and committed many atrocities there. For a movie like this, it’s hard to separate the heavy subject matter from the artistry of the filmmaking. I don’t really want to tackle what the film is about. Many words have been written about the topic and I don’t think I have anything to add to that discussion.

What I want to focus on is how the movie addresses the subject matter. First of all, the black and white cinematography is simply stunning. The set design is very realistic, and it really makes you feel like you’re there.

So what does it feel like to be there? For the first third or half of the movie, I had a very uneasy feeling because I was anticipating what horrors were going to happen next. Being familiar with the history, I went into the movie expecting to see shocking images. Sure enough, it is very uncomfortable to watch, but actually not as graphic as I expected. The emotional impact comes more from the suggestion of what’s going on rather than showing it, and in that way, it’s very effective. For example, one scene shows a mass shooting of Chinese POWs, but only in brief glimpses. The film spends much more time showing the reactions of the other inhabitants of the city to the sound of guns they hear in the distance.

For the latter parts of the movie, my sense of uneasiness died down and was replaced by numbness. The movie is so unrelenting in portraying one unpleasant situation after another that after a while you just have to block it out and stop thinking about it. The performances of the characters in the movie seem to become increasingly hopeless and lifeless. Basically, the only thing I felt was lack of feeling, which is what I think the film is going for in depicting the stress and trauma of war.

This is one of those movies that’s difficult to watch, but I would like to see it again. I feel like I should have deeper opinions about it, but as I said, all I felt was numb in the end. Maybe on a second viewing, I’ll be more able to absorb it. All in all, it was a powerful experience.

4 out of 5