Hell in the Pacific

#1 in my ranking of John Boorman’s films.

I love these sorts of tiny little films from accomplished filmmakers. This is two actors (literally no more than two at any point in the film) in a battle of wills and wits on a beach. It’s the sort of thing that, just at the sound of it without any mention of names, comes off like some sort of low-budget independent affair that’ll probably be incredibly boring for the lack of any real events. Instead, when you include John Boorman, the talented young British filmmaker, with Lee Marvin, one of the biggest American movie stars at the time, and Toshiro Mifune, the biggest Japanese movie star at the time, and you’ve got an interesting recipe worthy of attention (also a surprisingly expensive one). Those who give that attention will find a quiet, contemplative, and really tense look at two men, stripped over everything from the outside, learning to trust each other but also how that can all fall apart.

A Japanese airman (Mifune) during WWII has washed up on a small, uncharted island in the Pacific. He’s had time to figure out a prime spot on the beach as well as methods for collecting fresh water and catching fish. He could survive for some time, waiting for a rescue party of some sort. He’s not alone, though, with an American airman on the island who is in a more desperate situation, having no water or food. This is the beginning of the battle of wills as the American tries to get the basics to survive.

One of the interesting things about how this film begins is that there is literally no mention of the greater war. Aside from the costumes already beginning to fray on Marvin and Mifune (mostly on Marvin at this point), and the obvious antipathy between American and Japanese military personnel, the audience is left to elicit that information on their own, but the lack of direct information about the war reframes the conflict between the two from the start. It’s more about the actual resources than the greater fight of nations, and it focuses the conflict on something more personal and tactile than it otherwise would be.

The two do try to kill each other for almost the full first half of the film, and it’s a tense game of cat and mouse as they get close to and away from each other in alternating turns. The Japanese airman’s patience runs out with the chase, and he tries to smoke out the American who retreats to a safer area. The American makes a mess of an alarm system of shells, and even uses some otherwise useless bullets to scare the Japanese, ending with him urinating on the Japanese man’s prostrate body, an insult that the Japanese will not tolerate.

The turn from antagonism to some mild form of acceptance with a retention of heavy mistrust happens becomes of an ironic twist. Just as the two are dead set on completing their execution of each other, running at each other in the jungle of the island, it begins to rain, undermining the very immediate nature of the fight. It helps diffuse things slightly to the point where one could refuse to murder the other, despite inherent advantages of the specific situation, and turn it into something of a prisoner of war situation. There’s some changing of advantage as the two demean each other in different ways, but the reality of their situation eventually just breaks through at a certain point. They cannot survive apart. They need each other.

One of the remarkable things of the film is the minimal dialogue. Almost everything needs to be carried by performance, and both Marvin and Mifune are up to the task. Marvin is the lesser actor, but he’s mostly offered moments of anger and sarcastic approaches to Mifune. Mifune was a great actor, and he gives the more subtle performance, which is helpful because I have no idea what he’s saying. The decision to not subtitle any of the Japanese dialogue is a great one, being one of several cinematic decisions that gives no preference of one character over the other. They are filmed the same way, have roughly the same amount of screentime, roughly the same amount of dialogue, and the only thing that really gives Marvin preference to an American audience is that we can understand what he’s saying. However, none of the dialogue that Marvin or Mifune speak is necessary for understanding the emotional journey of the two characters. Their antagonism turning into antipathy and finally into some kind of uneasy friendship is all captured through cinematic techniques unrelated to them speaking. To imply that the film is effectively silent for long stretches, though, is an unfair aspersion on the incredible sound design that uses music and effects to help dig into the internal psyches of the two, probably the most obvious moment being when the American breaks the Japanese with the bullets in the fire.

The two make a raft and get off the island, returning to something approaching civilization after days, perhaps weeks, on the water, and from the moment they find themselves in an abandoned Japanese military installation that had been later taken over by Americans, both sides leaving behind bits and bobs like pictures of wives, sake, and cigarettes. From the moment the American finds the cigarettes while flipping through a volume of Life magazine that details some of the national conflict between the two states, it’s obvious that the unity between the men is beginning to fray, both men desperately clinging to their brotherhood that they both know is ending.

Now, the ending. Boorman made his film and ended it a quiet way with both men walking away, going back to their own armies somewhere off in the distance. It’s a perfect ending, and it’s now been relegated as an “alternate ending” because the studio, Cinerama, didn’t get it and wanted something more action packed, so they stopped the final confrontation between the two mid-shot, shook up the image, and then inserted footage of a building blowing up, the implication that they both died in a bombing, the soundtrack being filled with distant booms in the scene leading up to the final break. Now, the new ending is dumb and blunt, but I think it’s interesting that it largely makes the same point as the original ending. The friendship is ended, blown apart by the war. Oh, I much prefer Boorman’s ending. It’s’ much more in line with the entire film that leads up to it. I just find it interesting that in trying to find a more “actiony” ending, the studio still managed to retain something of the original intention even if it means that the sudden change almost feels like a punchline to a joke instead of a dramatic fulfillment.

That being said, I really love Hell in the Pacific. The sparseness of the narrative allows great focus on the characters while providing a large space for implication and even subtlety in this tale of the loss of civilization, the rise of cooperation and friendship, and it all coming crashing down again. I suppose there’s something in here about the idea of the noble savage as both civilized men get reduced to a certain savagery (something, I think, Boorman would later revisit in The Emerald Forest), but it’s the specifics of the characters, done without really knowing their backstories at all, that I find so compelling.

Rating: 4/4