This Saturday past, my uncle and I found ourselves in a
common weekend predicament of ours: we were just finishing lunch and didn’t
know what to do with ourselves until dinner. We thus decided to resort to our
equally common solution for such predicaments: watching a film. Unfortunately
at the time, it seemed like slim pickings. Of the options I floated, Hacksaw
Ridge took his fancy the most, and so off we went.
As with most pleasant surprises, we both arrived at the
cinema with our expectations at about sea level. I thought Hacksaw Ridge was
just going to be another WWII film; an outcome I would have had no issue with.
I was happy to discover it was a deeply engaging and moving film. It tells the
story of Desmond Doss, a United States Army soldier who served as a combat
medic in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. Doss distinguished
himself by saving the lives of dozens of fellow soldiers during the Battle of
Okinawa in 1945, earning himself a Medal of Honour; the US military’s highest honour.
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| Doss about to receive the Medal of Honour, 1945 |
The above alone was enough to pique my interest in the film,
but only once it began did I learn that Doss was a Seventh-Day Adventist, a
Christian denomination known for its strong pacifist views. As such, not only
did Doss receive a Medal of Honour, he was the first conscientious objector
ever to do so. Hacksaw Ridge, then, tells a story of Doss’ struggle to navigate
his convictions, chiefly his deep desire to serve his country (underpinned by
powerful societal pressures to do so) while remaining true to his religious
principle of non-violence, all in the face of mistrust from his fellow soldiers
and worries of his loved ones.
Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Doss as a person trying their
hardest to move steadily forward in exceptionally trying circumstances while
different forces, both psychological as well as physical, threaten to pull him
apart not only justifies the Oscar nomination he has received, but makes for a
profoundly compelling and gripping film. Hacksaw Ridge beautifully conveys the heights
of the power of human belief, as Garfield’s Doss climbs to those heights to
endure great tribulations and achieve something truly extraordinary. Yes it’s a
theme as old as time, but it is so precisely because of how we are so
persistently moved by it through the power of good storytelling.
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| Hacksaw Ridge pulls no punches in its depiction of the savagery of war |
What made Hacksaw Ridge quite special in my eyes is that it
told a very real human story. My uncle mentioned to me after the film that,
during the scene where Doss begins to rescue scores of his fellow wounded
soldiers, he wondered if Hollywood had overinflated the scale of his
achievement for dramatic effect. In reality, Doss indeed pulled 75 injured
servicemen to safety at Okinawa. The makers of Hacksaw Ridge may well have
embellished his story, particularly events leading up to the achievement, such
as the initial resistance he faced from the military to his enlistment, or his
troubled relationship with his father. Even if they did so, however, it was the
embellishment his good story deserves, which did not rob it of its impact.
As a fan of always being able to see both sides of the
story, perhaps the main issue that nagged at me throughout the film was its
portrayal of the Japanese soldiers fighting against Doss and his compatriots.
They are depicted in a very one-dimensional fashion: blindly ferocious and
cruel. On the other side, while the film generally resists the impulse to glorify the ordeal of the American soldiers, a few heroic gestures slip through cracks, accomplishing precious little for the story. Perhaps it is unfair to dwell on these points though, as it could be said Hacksaw
Ridge is more about one person navigating a war through their beliefs rather
than exposing the complexities of the war itself. Moreover, the film does
provide some redeeming glimpses into the lives of the Japanese soldiers as
well, briefly returning their humanity to them and, in one moment, hinting that
stories as powerful and complex as Doss’ could have just as well played out on
the other side of the battlefield.
