Local Hero

Typical of Japanese war-time propaganda, the film suggests that Japan's fascist ideology, its inculcation of fanatical obedience, its vast perpetration of unthinkable atrocities in a systematic manner, and its aggressive military expansionism can all be replaced by Japan's supposed victimization. Rather telling in this respect is the song that the girls repeatedly sing to boost morale, a song that recalls that barbarian Mongol conquerors once tried to invade Japan from China, but that the perpetrators of such heinous deeds of aggression could not possibly co-exist under the same sky with the innocent and pure Japanese-- this, of course, is being sung during a war that was begun when an utterly unprovoked Japan invaded China and slaughtered untold numbers of its population mercilessly.

All of this would be something that one could simply shrug off as the past blindness of war, but films such as these are more disturbing today than, say, Triumph of the Will because while Germany was forced to confront the horrors it had unleashed upon the world, most Japanese films even today (and textbooks for that matter) still tend to view Japan as a victim in the war (see, for instance, Kurosawa's own Rhapsody in August so many decades later). Assisted by the policies of the American post-war occupation, Japan has never had to come to terms with what it did to the planet, and what in human history can possibly more disturbing than a lack of accountability for the worst sins humanity can commit? And by the way, I say all of this despite the fact that Kurosawa is probably my favorite director.

I have spent my entire adult life reading and teaching the works of Dostoevsky, and as such I often approach film adaptations with a great deal of trepidation. Cinematic adaptations of ambitious Russian novels inherently involve a tremendous amount of compromise and reduction. At worst, they become embarrassing comic-book imitations of the original, and, at best, they become representative distillations, provocative fragments.

If one wants to see the best attempt at the latter, one should see the 1970 Kulidzhanov film version, which hews as close as possible to the original spirit and themes of the novel.

This 1935 von Sternberg version does not fall neatly into either category. It certainly makes some wrenching changes to the original-- not just in terms of plot details (such changes are inevitable for the cinematic form), but even to the thematic spirit of the original (Roderick receiving such high honors at the outset; Roderick entering a such a strident Napoleonic phase _after_ the crime; the momentary 180-degree reversal in Sonia's final speech), but what does come through successfully is a kind of gestalt rumination on the original novel. If Dostoevsky's novel was an exquisitely perfect, ambitious symphony, this film is a jazz rhapsody on the theme of the book; it borrows and rearranges motifs and creates its own new song, a song nothing like the original in particulars, but a worthwhile song on its own merits.

The film certainly seems to make full use of the serendipitous similarity in appearance between Lorre and Napoleon in his most famous portraits (Lorre even hams it up by sliding his hand under his vest at one point, which is the stereotypical Napoleonic gesture). And the decision to set the story in no particular city, it seems to me, was a judicious one, as it eliminates much of the painful artificiality that inevitably comes when Anglophone films attempt to portray Russian society.

In short, I do think this is a worthwhile film if it is judged as a creation unto its own-- not the novel per se, but a kind of Hollywood, proto-noir inspired by the great book.