MUBI

Everything about Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard’s memoir about growing up in a prison camp during the Japanese occupation of China, seemed right for Steven Spielberg. He wanted desperately to be treated seriously as a filmmaker without letting go of his childhood wonders. Not only was the nature of Ballard’s book perfect (war through the eyes of a child), but also struck a deeply personal chord. There was much of the young Spielberg in the little boy growing up in the British settlement in Shanghai. Both had a fascination with the world of flight, taking them beyond the doldrums of their lives.
It was a match made in heaven and Empire of the Sun is both one of Spielberg’s best movies and his most underrated. His best movies have always been complex but this one, along with the preceding The Color Purple, marked his transition into a truly versatile filmmaker and is a reminder of how much more unconventional Spielberg used to be.
The best thing about Empire of the Sun, however, is Christian Bale as the young Jamie Graham. Even at the age of 13 it was obvious that he was going to become a great actor. His performance is incredibly measured and nuanced, and never cloying. He was robbed of a nomination.
Bale’s performance runs with the grain of the film, for Empire of the Sun is a story about the rebirth that comes with growing up. It opens with death. The first sight we see are coffins floating in the harbor. But there are also flowers in the water, suggesting that life starts anew. Both objects are trampled by a Japanese ship, creating the change that puts the cycle in motion.
Jim is a brat at first, no way about it. He suffers from both only child syndrome and the blinding wealth of his parents. His mother is almost catatonic and his father never disciplines him. Exemplifying his pampered life is the scene inspired by Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom from Fear” in which they tuck him in at night.
Jim’s love for planes is initially very naïve; an adventurous view of war shared by many boys. Later it becomes what will help him retain his humanity. Jim and the other Westerners are separated from the real China by their own barriers. In a brilliantly contrasting sequence, they are filmed driving through the streets of Shanghai amidst starving urchins and brutal poverty while dressed for a masquerade ball, suggesting that they are living in a fake world.
Empire of the Sun is made almost entirely of magnificent moments and one of the best comes when Jim wanders away from the party into a field where he finds a shot-down plane. At this point, Jim can’t comprehend war. To him the Japanese are heroes and he seems oblivious to the atrocities they commit in China. To him, the fallen plane is not indicative of death but, rather, a toy with which to live out his fantasies. However, this scene will conclude with his first true encounter with death as he stumbles on a Japanese dugout, staring at the real face of the enemy for the first time.
Jim was led to both the fallen aircraft and the foxhole by his toy glider. When the Japanese troops invade Shanghai and the British try to evacuate the city in a panic, it is once again a toy plane that causes Jim to become separated from his mother in the frantic crowd. A symbol of his innocence launches his journey to adulthood.
Of course, this awakening to reality extends beyond Jim. It is so eerie to see British Shanghai snuffed of life. The English are no longer the dominant residents and Jim finds himself alone in the abandoned quarters of the city. There are remnants within Jim’s old house of grim changes. In his mother’s dressing room he finds evidence of foul play, his mother likely having been attacked. But he knows nothing about sex, let alone rape, and he is not yet ready for the lessons he will learn in the camp. For now, Jim finds himself no different than the Chinese citizens who were desperately trying to escape the city by riding his family’s car.
Jim’s official rebirth comes with his introduction to Basie (John Malkovich), an American black-marketer hiding in the shipyards. Basie takes the boy in, christening him ‘Jim’ (“a new name for a new life”) but he is far from a surrogate father. He is opportunistic and grooms Jim to do his dirty business, much like Dickens’s Fagin. When an encounter with a group of Japanese soldiers turns dangerous, he is willing to leave Jim behind to make his getaway.
But there is no escape and at the camp, Jim becomes part of a collective loss of innocence. The English now take the part of beggars, clanging their dinner plates. One in particular, Mrs. Victor (Miranda Richardson) tries to hold on to dignity, even continuing to apply make-up. Basie is clever and knows the inner workings of the camp, many of which Jim can’t comprehend, such as stealing from dead fellow prisoners. Another reoccurring theme of Empire of the Sun is the distinction between who gets the privilege of moving out when the going is good and who is left behind. The Chinese were left behind in Shanghai and Jim, in turn, will be left behind three times. He is left alone in Shanghai, then Basie refuses to help him hitch a ride to the new camp, and, finally, Basie abandons him yet again in a final act of betrayal.
But Jim becomes the life force of the camp, helping the doctor on site (Nigel Havers), running jobs for Basie and the other Americans, and bonding with a young kamikaze pilot through their love for aviation, their shared passion transcending geopolitics.
But Jim isn’t as naïve anymore. Four years in the camp have made him more cynical and he becomes gradually aware of the surrounding realities. His introduction to sex (by observing the Victors in their bunk) is a true coming of age moment and the bombings in the background are not an incidental touch in the scene.
Besides the moments of breathtaking glory, Empire of the Sun is graced with scenes that could only be classified as part of the Spielberg touch. Arguably, the greatest moment in the film comes after Jim has proven himself worthy of a bed in the Americans’ corner, completing the final stage of his morphing. Having tricked the camp’s tyrannical guard, Jim, his face muddy, marches proudly into the bunk as the Americans salute him. But as he lies on his newly earned bed staring at the ceiling, the soundtrack turns to a melancholy piano tune, a reminder of the former life Jim used to live and how far he’s come in four years.
The completion of Jim’s journey into adulthood comes with tragedy. When the A-bomb is dropped, Jim thinks it is the soul of Mrs. Victor (who died of malnutrition) going up to heaven. It’s an ironic confusion as he is equating a bringer of mass death with a symbol of immortality. But Jim is now fully grown, and the confirmation of this is his rejection of Basie. He knows now that he no longer needs him as a friend. The last shot of Empire of the Sun is Jim’s suitcase floating in the harbor after Japan surrenders. Like the coffins that opened the film it symbolizes death. It’s the death of Jim’s childhood. But there is rebirth, the death of Jamie the child gave birth to Jim the man.

I saw it long ago and it bored me monumentally. I watched it last night with a bit more attention and paying attention is a good way to defeat boredom, but also to reveal its mechanism: I now know why I was bored.

To start with, it seemed quite promising. As it continued, it began to repeat itself, and to irritate by repetition. The first irritation was the constant rhetorical trick of starting on object A, say Christian Bale, then slowly panning up or down to stop on some other obviously significant object which is the ‘punch-line’ of the shot, say ‘what Christian Bale has just noticed’. Sometimes it’s the other way round, from apparently random object to ‘how he reacts’, but it’s the same movement every time. Imagine the source novel prefacing every revelation with ‘And what do you think he saw?’ Once, it works; twice, it becomes typical; all the time, it’s wearing. (I should I suppose add a caveat that I’m assuming this is Spielberg’s camerawork and not an artefact of aspect ratio-change and pan-and-scan, but it did normally seem to fit the narrative).

Eventually, you realise that Spielberg has a formula for everything. They’re mostly slick and fairly complex formulas, and effective for their purpose, but they don’t change. There’s a ‘chaotic crowd scene’ formula, as you can imagine often in use here [establishing shot, mid-shots and close-ups of strangers usually tracking in alternate directions, mid-shots picking up someone we know]. There’s a ‘gradual connection’ or ‘new complicity’ formula (shot/counter-shot with approaching distance]. There’s an ‘important revelation ahead’ formula which goes back several times to the image-that-will-reveal-it-in-a-moment (as soon as the light changes, someone turns round, a particular action is taken etc…), so that you inevitably know what the big shock will be three shots before it happens, which is suspense-by-numbers. There’s an ‘awe’ formula – of the ‘awe shucks’ school – which involves filters or other odd light-effects and massive abuse of ethereal choruses, which takes over as the film progresses to the point of induced nausea in response to all heavenly choirs. There’s the ‘incongruous object’ effect, the ‘wonder-shot’ framed to let the audience sit amazed at the beautiful image, a particular obsession with ‘the shoe-shot’ where some character’s inappropriate footwear becomes a summary of their situation. To be fair that one sometimes works, but it’s overworked. Etc.

When it does work is when it’s dynamic. Either at a moment of real tension, as when young Jim is hiding in the marshes while a Japanese guard searches for him in the reeds – but it would take wilful determination to mess up a scene like that; or when the formula for once gives way to the character and leaves the camera to them. Such, I think, is the insistence on Jim’s extreme mobility as soon as he’s left to himself. rather too neatly formulaic maybe when, at beginning and end, he circles different abandoned living spaces on a bicycle: formulaic, but still exuberant, a little desperate, and fresh. For so much of the first twenty minutes or so he’s trapped behind a window, not supposed even to wriggle, and even when outside not allowed to cycle on the lawn; there’s an ambivalent liberation in disaster. But it really comes into its own when the newly independent, useful and skilful boy runs through the camp, passing this to one person and that to another, exchanging, fixing, linking, never still for a moment, sovereign of the space and pulling Spielberg with him, and with others behind windows watching him. That was what the film wanted to be, but if it followed that momentum, heaven knows where it would end up. Probably not with ‘Mrs Victor’s soul going up to heaven’ (Awwwww. Ewwwww.) and probably not with a formula. So No. Incidentally, talking about ‘sovereign of the space’, am I wrong or isn’t this Chinese space occupied by the Japanese who had no business being there and in small part also inhabited by European settlers? In which case how does the film get away with giving all the screen space to Europeans, wandering Americans and dangerous but ever-so-charismatic Japanese? Reminds me of a silly French song: 80 millions de Chinois – et moi et moi et moi?. Occupation indeed.

A genuinely charming movie that finally validates the value of recurrent themes and elements in Spielberg’s films: the grandiose, alienation, glorification of hope & other traditional American values, the intensely clear dividing line between the “bad” and the “good”, and of course the overly dramatic music.

Against all odds, they actually happen to be relevant in this film! Instead of getting extremely irritated as I usually am when these elements inevitably emerge from most of his films, they were so well embedded in the plot and the different groups of characters this time that I caught myself celebrating them with young Jamie as he sung the japanese anthem (Suo Gan) with the pilots from the camp in which he is maintained captive. Notice his typically American bomber: full of meaning, it is almost an embodiment of this American military sense of Duty and Dignity; but while this symbolism paired with Bale’s very convincing innocence and purity of motives could be intoxicatingly cliché, it is jubilant!

His clear soprano voice hallows the scene itself, and elevates the whole film, as it were, to the Tale. This is how I value this film: the WWII context is, to me, almost trivial. It is a story of coming of age in a context of war, yes indeed; but also a story of exile, of some kind of return to the “roots” of Man, to his capacity to live in rudimentarily organized groups, to adapt himself to any context in terms of will for power – with transparency and authenticity, in the case of Jamie. The adults – whether British, American, or Japanese – are treated in quite the same way, as identical, dull zombies: they unquestionably represent a helplessly cynical mass, while the only one from whom Jamie has lessons to take is solid and colorful (and American, of course).

This American anti-hero is no other than Malkovich. What a beautiful character has Spielberg created! Malkovich’s ice cold stare render his character absolutely opaque: is he truly thus ill-principled, fundamentally “bad”, and pitiless as the film suggests? Malkovich has such a deceitful charisma that the audience comes to forget the very question of morality to remain at the level of what is felt, in this context of war in which nothing is true anymore. Spielberg’s film definitely captures this aspect of the wartime world. While this is true, Jamie does hold on to some innate principle of justice, which is closely related to his disarming honesty. Not surprisingly, his “strength of will” strikes back! And he eventually rejects Malkovich’s leadership.

Moving away from the big picture, there are some truly precious moments in this film. The famous “P-51, Cadillac of the skies!” scene is particularly memorable and euphoric. I must however say that I wish Jamie would not recognize his parents at the end, the cheesy moral really does not make it for me – though it is clear that there is, again, a return towards what Spielberg seems to conceive as the neglected “true” nature of Man, affections. Jamie only recognizes his mother, whom he touches and feels, though it is clear to the audience that he has lost – and will from now on deny – his bourgeois identity.

Embrace the traditional American values: dignity, duty, patriotism, transparency, strength of will, honesty, courage! And indulge.

I think it’s scary how amazing Christian Bale was in this. The story is just such an emotional drain, you can’t help but fall in love with Jim and his search for his family. He goes through just about everything and never seems to lose hope. The look and feel of the movie is so realistic, you feel like you’re actually there. The locations and sheer scale of the movie make you question how they got some of the shots they did. I think this is Spielberg’s best WWII story because he allowed himself to look at the story without making it good vs. evil.

It goes without saying that Steven Spielberg is one of the truly great directors in the history of cinema. His best films are among the all-time greats, but even a filmmaker as gifted as Spielberg may go through dry spells. He’s smack dab in one now. His last three films – Munich, War of the Worlds and The Terminal – have been among his weakest and least inspired. If history is a guide, he will recover.

Spielberg had a similar dry spell in the late eighties, and it began with the film we now review, Empire of the Sun. Back then we had to endure the sugary fluff of Always and Hook before he returned to form with the devastatingly powerful Schindler’s List. Empire of the Sun is better than most of the above-mentioned slump films, but it’s the perfect example of how Spielberg’s attempts to move beyond popular entertainment toward serious filmmaking have led to some works being well below his own very high standards.

Empire of the Sun was Spielberg’s second attempt at a “serious” film. The first was The Color Purple, which was significantly better. My guess is that he relied on his strong source material in filming the Alice Walker novel, so his usual “signatures” were limited to the visual look of the film. Empire of the Sun, on the other hand, suffers because he overly relies on his traditional theme of childlike wonderment, which served him so well in classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for a story that does not necessarily lend itself to that message.

Christian Bale, in an outstanding performance, plays Jim, a British lad living in Shanghai at the outset of World War II. Japan had been occupying this area of China and, at the time of Pearl Harbor, all American and British citizens were sent to prison camps for the duration of the war. Jim, separated from his family, is soon befriended by a shady American mercenary played by John Malkovich. Jim must grow up fast in this brutal environment as he witnesses the horrors of war.

To demonstrate this forced journey into adulthood, Spielberg uses Jim’s bike as shorthand for his innocence. He is first seen riding around his family’s wealthy estate carrying a toy plane, which tips us off to his ultimately bizarre obsession with flying. Since he cannot fly, he rides. After his parents are captured, he cycles through the empty rooms of his former home. Just before his own capture, his bike is stolen, never to be recovered, just like his childhood.

While Empire of the Sun’s subject matter is grim, at this stage of his career, Spielberg could not subjugate his own optimism. The result is an expertly made film with beautiful cinematography that doesn’t really know what it’s about. It could have been a rousing adventure story or a tragic meditation on war, not both at the same time. In 1987, Spielberg wasn’t yet ready to make this film, but Empire of the Sun can now be seen as a curious transitional work of an important director.