Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln
Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies
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Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Tom Stoppard
Cast: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Joe Pantoliano, Miranda Richardson, Peter Gale, Nigel Havers
Runtime: 153 mins.
1987
Empire of the Sun is a World War II film from an atypical perspective. The movie follows a young British boy named Jamie Graham (Christian Bale) who has lived in Shanghai his whole life. His father is a merchant, and his mansion is maintained by Chinese servants. He takes advantage of them, as any young boy in his social position would do. But his social position changes drastically when a Japanese military force invades Shanghai, and the streets erupt in a chaos of fleeing civilians. Jamie is separated from his parents and wanders about the city bereft, hungry, and seeking someone to take him to safety. The man he finds and latches onto is an American scoundrel named Basie (John Malkovich) who prides himself on being able to slip through the cracks of society. Unfortunately, he's not slippery enough. Basie and the freshly-christened "Jim" are deposited in a Japanese internment camp, and most of the film follows Jim as he grows up in leaps and bounds, styling himself as the caretaker of everyone in the camp. He becomes more capable than many of the depressed and defeated adults around him; he takes the blows of wartime with both a childish eagerness and a well-worn wisdom.
This being a wartime narrative anchored in a child's perspective, a great deal of Empire explores the loss of innocence. Jim finds himself lambasted with trauma and thrust into a world he does not understand, so he makes it his business to be one step ahead of the systems around him. Jim cares most about survival, but he is still a child and he can't help but find wonder and respect in certain aspects of the drudgery of life. For one, Jim has always been obsessed with flying, and he stares longingly at the Japanese airfield abutting the internment camp. For another, Jim imprints hard on Basie's survivalist attitude.
There's a great thematic deconstruction of nationalism at play here, as Jim's loyalties ping pong back and forth between England, China, Japan, and America. He's British by birth and enculturation, but he admits to one of his fellow prisoners that he doesn't identify with the Brits; he's spent his whole life in China. He admires the bravery of the Japanese pilots, and he idolizes the irreverent can-do attitude of the Americans. In fact, he puts himself in peril for something of an initiation ceremony that will allow him to bunk with the Americans instead of the British.
I love this commentary because it explores what can happen to a person if they are yanked from their comfort zone before they have gotten old enough to cement their nationalistic ideologies. The burden of selling this theme falls on the shoulders of a young Christian Bale, and he goes above and beyond the call of duty. In his second film, Bale gives us an incredible narrative arc for a character who begins the movie as a wide-eyed nine-year-old and ends as a smudgy battleworn thirteen-year-old. He portrays emptiness and wonder with incredible elasticity.
Empire is one of Spielberg's earliest attempts to break out of the stereotype he built for himself: the child who never had to grow up. The film is packed with potent traumatic imagery and doesn't shy away from death. That being said, the movie is still recognizably Spielbergian, with plenty of strong images of triumph and wonder mixed in. Somehow the latter don't interfere with the former. Spielberg's wizardry makes the wonder and the terror feel of a piece when couched in the perspective of a child. This comes to a head in the climactic sequence of American planes bombing the internment camp. Jim stands atop a building and cheers on the majestic bombers, as everyone else hides away and cowers in fear.
To me, the most incredible thing about Empire of the Sun is that nobody talks about it. When people mention World War II Spielberg, they're talking Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Indiana Jones. I honestly can't remember hearing a single thing about Empire of the Sun in my entire life. The movie isn't perfect. It rambles occasionally, and the progression of the narrative isn't always crystal clear. But the sublime bombing sequence alone should be enough to keep this movie in the public consciousness. Spielberg plays with scale and craft in jawdropping ways.
My viewing of Empire was valuable because for the first time in my adult life, I've been able to experience vintage Spielberg fresh in all of its glory. I've been desensitized to Spielberg's popular works due to heavy exposure, and the new Spielberg films I've watched recently (Duel + 1941) aren't exactly filled with wonder. Watching Empire was like magic. Spielberg had me in the palm of his hand and whisked me through the two and a half hours like they were nothing. I was captivated. Normally I don't care much about planes, but the task of movies is to build empathy; by that climactic moment, the bomber jet swooping above the internment camp and dropping its payload felt like one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a while.
3.5 / 5 BLOBS
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