War Case - Film Review - Paradise Road

A Chinese proverb once states "May you not live interesting times." Indeed interesting times are known to be times of extreme conflict, which historians would label as war, when human values and ideals are threatened. Clearly to live an ordered existence in a civilized society, we must respect and uphold human dignity be sympathetic to our fellow humans sufferings and uphold truth and justice. But, when these values and ideals are shaken during times of extremity, our moral strength becomes challenged and tested as well. Of course, during these times many of us will simply endure and survive. But, only some individual will be able to do it without compromising their values and ideals. When challenged some of us will transcend our human limitations, achieve what we would believe as impossible in ordinary circumstance and exhibit the extraordinary strength of the human spirit and soar above the human brutality and cruelty through acts of selflessness and self-sacrifice. It is then we realize our full potential for greatness.

War is the most extreme form of conflict. It always results in mass destructions of life, cities and of civilizations. During war we see our base qualities; barbarity and brutality. In the film, Paradise Road, Wing and her husband are victims of the Japanese. Wing's husband, suspected of being a Chinese sympathizer, is decapitated and has his head spiked at towns square. Wing, not much better off, is caught trading quinine for Mrs Roberts' malaria is burnt alive. Here, we see people's capacity for evil, to torture their fellow humans in the most tormenting and dehumanizing form. Another example of the consequence when human moral fiber disintegrates during extreme conflict is The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. The so called ‘valiant' and ‘reliable' U.S soldiers, well they immersed themselves in what would be called "mass killing." They killed, rapped and even scalped in total of 504 of civilians. The pain, humility and misery that these soldiers have inflicted on the civilians highlights during war we descent into inhumane brutality. In the great war poet Wilfred Owen's ‘Dulce et Decorum Est,' he presents a graphic description of the suffering men in World War Two, his physical description "the white eyes writhing in his face. His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin," and the harsh sounds of "guttering" and "chocking" emphasis the anguish of the gassed soldiers. Owen's poem confronts human ability to torment their fellow humans in the most disturbing way possible. Most of us in a situation of extreme conflict would like to believe that we would be a brave soldier or a reliable comrade-in-arm. But, from history it shows we, as human beings, have not lived up to his expectations.

However, the midst of this cruelty, inhumanity and brutality, people can show their capacity to perform extraordinary deeds