{"id":540,"date":"2007-08-05T20:46:49","date_gmt":"2007-08-06T00:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=540"},"modified":"2009-09-12T20:55:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-13T00:55:21","slug":"rescue-dawn-2006-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"Rescue Dawn (2006) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christian

Christian Bale and the "Hollywoodized" version of Eugene DeBruin, as played by Jeremy Davies<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Eugene

Eugene DeBruin in reality, before his capture. He is still MIA<\/p><\/div>\n

A Tale of Two Heroes<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n

[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/p>\n

Rescue Dawn<\/strong><\/em>. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Marshall Bell, Zach Grenier, Fran\u00e7ois Chau, Pat Healy, Teerawat Mulvilai, Yuttana Muenwaja, Chorn Solyda, Kriangsak Ming-olo, Abhijati \u2018Meuk\u2019 Jusakul, Lek Chaiyan Chunsuttiwat, and Andy Loftus. Music by Klaus Badelt. Art direction by Arin \u2018Aoi\u2019 Pinijvararak. Costume design by Annie Dunn. Cinematography by Peter Zeitlinger, B.V.K.\u00a0 Edited by Joe Bini. Written and directed by Werner Herzog. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer\/Gibraltar Films, 2006, Color, 126 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13).<\/strong><\/span><\/pre>\n
\r\n<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
<\/h1>\n
Rescue Dawn<\/em> is a great motion picture. German director Werner Herzog\u2019s biopic is an inspiring film that recounts a daring POW camp escape during the early years of the Vietnam War. Recalling Steve McQueen\u2019s role in Papillon<\/em>, Rescue Dawn <\/em>is a story about one man\u2019s struggle against all odds\u2014indeed, often against the inertia and fright of his own fellow prisoners\u2014to break through to freedom.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exactly the kind of audacious filmmaking you\u2019d expect from Herzog, an equally audacious personality. In 1982, he directed the fantastical Fitzcarraldo<\/em>, a sprawling epic about an obsessive hero: Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) longed to build an opera palace in the midst of the dense South American jungle, bringing legendary tenor Enrico Caruso there to perform. To realize his protagonist\u2019s grandiose ambitions, Herzog staged what has got to be the cinema\u2019s most spectacular scenes, beyond even Cecil B. DeMille\u2019s wildest dreams. Hundreds of Indians moved a steamboat out of the river and onto land, bypassing dangerous rapids.<\/p>\n
Thus did Fitzcarraldo\u2019s impossible dream become Herzog\u2019s own. One reason I\u2019m so blas\u00e9 about CGI special effects is from having seen this breathtaking sequence: No special effects or miniatures, but hundreds of extras breaking their backs, and the bizarre spectacle of a steamboat emerging through the clouds over a mountaintop summit.<\/p>\n
A quarter-century later, Herzog returns us to the heart of darkness of the Laotian jungle in this equally excruciating work. Christian Bale gives a fervent, stirring performance as German-born U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler. From early childhood, Dieter\u2019s sole wish was to fly: As a small boy growing up in Nazi Germany during World War II, he experienced an epiphany as Allied pilots bombed and strafed his Bavarian village of Wildberg. Witnessing the attack in awe, he vowed to become a pilot when he grew up.<\/p>\n
Shot down on one of his first missions over Laos in 1966, Dengler had to claw his way back to freedom, hacking through dense jungle vegetation, after many long months of imprisonment by Pathet Lao soldiers. Shortly after being taken captive and after suffering beatings, psychological torture, and starvation at the hands of his captors, he\u2019s brought to the gem\u00fctlich<\/em> office of a provincial governor (Fran\u00e7ois Chau), who promises Dengler freedom if he signs a confession for committing \u201cimperialist aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dengler flatly refuses. \u201cI love America,\u201d the pilot explains, \u201cAmerica gave me wings. Will I sign it? Absolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being marched again through the blistering jungle heat, Dengler winds up in a prison run by sadistic youths with itchy trigger fingers. As soon as he\u2019s locked up, he begins planning his escape from the poorly constructed bamboo hut. But, fellow captive Eugene (Jeremy Davies) nervously warns him: \u201cThis hut<\/em> ain\u2019t no prison. The jungle<\/em> is the prison. Don\u2019t you get it?\u201d He advises waiting until monsoon season to make the grueling journey into Thailand, when it\u2019s easier to drink fresh water and avoid dying of thirst.<\/p>\n
Dengler\u2019s fellow prisoners were imprisoned a couple years before he arrived, and during the months he plans their breakout, he often has to overcome low morale and backbiting, particularly from the squirrelly Gene, who would just as soon sabotage their plans than risk his life. Another fellow American prisoner, Duane Martin (Steve Zahn), has been weakened\u2014both spiritually and physically\u2014and as the men lie awake nights shackled, Dengler steadfastly tries to build up their hope and confidence. I admired Bale\u2019s never-say-die performance: While his fellow cellmates spend a lot of time carping about the dangers of escaping, through his resourcefulness and optimism, Dengler helps rebuild the esprit de corps<\/em> that had been beaten out of them. Despite torture and deprivation, what doesn\u2019t kill Dengler makes him stronger.<\/p>\n
The men share one wish: To get back home. Living on a handful ration of rice each day, they obsess about food, and fantasize aloud to each other about the contents of their refrigerators when they get back to civilization. To stress the isolation and hell of their internment, the men have tacked on the wall in lieu of pinup girls labels from canned beans, long since consumed, from a Red Cross parcel.<\/p>\n
Rescue Dawn <\/em>captures what it means to be an American. Through Dengler\u2019s valorous feats of evasion and survival, Herzog brilliantly captures on film the astonishing true story of an individual who chose to become an American in the most meaningful way, and refused to back away from that choice, even under the most grueling of circumstances. Herzog also drives home the point of individual\u2019s initiative triumphing over group inertia, which is a common thread running through literature and the arts since Ancient Greece. Rescue Dawn <\/em>is a timeless tale of man\u2019s triumph over men, and one of the few movies that portrays America\u2019s actions in Vietnam in a positive, indeed laudable, light.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
There\u2019s just one problem with Rescue Dawn:<\/em> In drawing Dengler\u2019s character with broad, heroic, strokes director Herzog bent the truth. As with so many other movies \u201cbased on a true story,\u201d Herzog condensed events and built up his protagonist\u2019s accomplishments. Directors do this to create a more coherent narrative, and these instances of \u201cr\u00e9sum\u00e9 embellishment\u201d do not bother me, because they don\u2019t contradict the heroic essence<\/em> of those remarkable individuals. For example, The Pursuit of Happyness<\/em> buffed away some of the scuff marks of investor Chris Gardner\u2019s rise. The World\u2019s Fastest Indian <\/em>had speed demon Burt Munro\u2019s breaking the 200-mph barrier at Bonneville years before he actually did.<\/p>\n
Likewise, Christian Bale\u2019s authoritative performance honors Herzog\u2019s longtime friend Dengler, who was awarded the Navy Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross for his unfaltering efforts. It is impossible for anyone with a conscience and a soul not to walk away from viewing Rescue Dawn<\/em> without rightly being roused by Dengler\u2019s story of courage and optimism.<\/p>\n
And yet, I walked away from the theater with a sense that something was \u201coff,\u201d but I couldn\u2019t put my finger on it. I received the answer in my inbox just as I sat down to write this review shortly thereafter in an e-mail forwarded to me by Erika and Hank Holzer, who are both actively involved with veterans\u2019 causes. It\u2019s link took me to a column posted on Debbie Schlussel\u2019s blog, which made the case that Herzog built up Dieter Dengler\u2019s character in Rescue Dawn<\/em> by downplaying the character of fellow POW Gene DeBruin, portraying him as duplicitous and sociopathic.<\/p>\n
Oddly, Herzog cast actor Jeremy Davies in the role of DeBruin. Schlussel noted that Davies previously played crazed mass murderer Charles Manson in the made-for-TV movie \u201cHelter Skelter.\u201d This observation jibed with my own notes: Upon first seeing Davies as DeBruin, I jotted, \u201clooks like Charlie Manson.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to many who knew him, though, the real life Gene DeBruin was the opposite of the moral weakling and often treacherous \u201cEugene from Eugene, Oregon\u201d onscreen version. \u201cThe portrayal was 180 degrees from who my brother was,\u201d his brother Jerry DeBruin, a professor emeritus from the University of Toledo, told me in a telephone interview:<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t the kook portrayed onscreen. He was really even-keeled, and was the peacemaker when confrontation arose. He taught English to the Asian prisoners there, and shared his blanket with his fellow prisoners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Indeed, even Dengler\u2019s own account of DeBruin in his 1979 autobiographical book Escape From Laos, <\/em>describes Gene DeBruin as inventive and gung-ho in plotting the escape. Far from being the cagey nut only concerned with his own survival, DeBruin, in fact stayed behind<\/em> instead of escaping, to take care of an injured POW from Hong Kong, Y.O. Tou.<\/p>\n
Why<\/em>, then, would Herzog have chosen to portray Gene DeBruin so negatively?<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/p>\n
In a 2006 interview, following the release of his documentary Grizzly Men<\/em>, Herzog revealed his \u201cecstatic truth\u201d philosophy of filmmaking:<\/p>\n
“We have to start seeing and working and explaining and articulating reality movies in a different way. Cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 was the answer of the sixties. Today, there\u2019s something else out there\u2026.Cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 is the accountant\u2019s truth, as I keep saying\u2014I\u2019ve insulted many with that,\u201d Herzog explained. \u201cFacts do not create truth, they create norms.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wholeheartedly agree with Herzog\u2019s thinking on this. If anything, his movies are not just entertaining, but ennobling. His heroes are heroic: <\/em>bold, brave, and larger-than-life. More so than any living director, he grasps that the cinema is an inherently Romantic<\/em> medium. One doesn\u2019t so much view a Herzog movie as experience<\/em> it. He interlaces his soundtracks with sublimely moving music from classical composers such as Wagner, Ginastera, Verdi, and Richard Strauss. It is this view of man and Earth that Herzog means by \u201cecstatic,\u201d and\u2014emotionally\u2014this is what so resonates with me, and I would be lying if I said otherwise.<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/p>\n
Yet, emotional <\/em>identification with an artist\u2019s aesthetic credo\u2014even a director of the first order like Werner Herzog\u2014cannot act as a substitute for intellectual<\/em> honesty and judgment, and therein lies the rub. New Individualist<\/em> Editor Robert Bidinotto registered his distate for the \u201cdocudrama\u201d genre in his blog last September:<\/p>\n
I have always disliked that weird hybrid of fact and fiction known as the \u201cdocudrama.\u201d An inherently dishonest contrivance, it jumbles actual people’s words and deeds with fictional characters, invented dialogue, and imaginary occurrences\u2014but never tells the audience which is which. [\u2026] The reputations of real people, living and dead, become toys for the docudramatist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When interviewed by the New York Times shortly before the release of Rescue Dawn,<\/em> reporter Mekado Murphy asked Herzog about \u201caccusations\u201d from DeBruin\u2019s family that Herzog took \u201cliberties [\u2026] with facts in Rescue Dawn.<\/em>\u201d Herzog\u2019s reply echoed the 2006 interview:<\/p>\n
If we are paying attention about facts, we end up as accountants. [\u2026] But we are into illumination for the sake of a deeper truth, for an ecstasy of truth, for something we can experience once in a while in great literature and great cinema. I’m imagining and staging and using my fantasies. [\u2026] Otherwise, if you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Unfortunately, Murphy\u2019s interview with Herzog ends at this point. The answer almost comes off as a non-sequitur: It doesn\u2019t address the seeming character attacks Rescue Dawn <\/em>makes on Gene DeBruin\u2019s character, or at best equates DeBruin\u2019s depiction with factual trivia concerning the movie\u2019s props.<\/p>\n
I contacted Herzog with a number of pointed questions regarding the depiction of DeBruin vis-\u00e0-vis these comments. He responded both promptly and forthrightly. About that particular quote, he answered:<\/p>\n
Dengler always understood that I was after the spirit of the story, its essence. [\u2026] In this context I spoke of the \u201caccountant’s truth\u201d, and in the specific interview you are mentioning I was pestered with questions coming at me many times why the film did show only six prisoners in the camp (seven is actually correct), why I did not show that Dengler was actually captured twice (again correct), why the film did not show that the prisoners were transferred from one camp into another (again correct), and so on, and I replied about Eugene DeBruin in this interview in a way I regret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But, did Herzog actually defame Gene DeBruin\u2019s character, through fabricated untruths, as alleged by Schlussel and Jerry DeBruin? In his e-mail to me, Herzog provides some factual context:<\/p>\n
[I]n conversations with me, Dengler was quite often unhappy about his published book Escape From Laos<\/em>, as it was cut down drastically by the publisher, and many human details got lost. Besides, Dengler always pointed out to me that the book was published fairly shortly after his rescue, and the search for Eugene DeBruin was still intense. He said to me at various occasions \u201cthis is the official version, but there are lots of things that should be told one day.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Among those things were detailed accounts of tensions among the prisoners, and in particular conflicts with Eugene DeBruin. Dieter Dengler\u2019s explanation was convincing: having spent years in medieval footblocks, having gone through starvation and disease, and having been subject to inhuman conditions, had worn down the men, or had led them into illusions about their imminent release. He said to me on many occasions that at some times \u201cwe would have strangled each other, had we not been handcuffed to each other.\u201d Dengler had planned a feature film together with me long before he died, and he welcomed my detailed outlines of the feature film. I am certain he would have liked the result, Rescue Dawn<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Do I doubt Herzog\u2019s explanations? Not for a moment. Here, we must again consider all the available evidence (which is often a luxury directors do not have within the time restraints of a movie). I certainly don\u2019t advocate suppressing evidence, merely because it is not entirely charitable in portraying a person\u2019s full character.<\/p>\n
I am usually loath to use my reviews to make unsolicited editorial suggestions. I have no \u201cfrustrated screenwriter\u201d inside of me, whose sole purpose is to nitpick and second-guess first-rate moviemakers. I do not think Herzog maliciously depicted Gene DeBruin.<\/p>\n
Herzog wrote me that, \u201cas a filmmaker I am not attempting to be a historian. There is a clear distinction between history and story for me. And second: it is in the nature of storytelling that you have to take one perspective, and mine is the perspective of Dieter Dengler.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, I have to agree with Schussel\u2019s assessment that so long as Herzog (self-admittedly) used a dramatic device which lopsidedly portrayed Gene DeBruin\u2019s darker side, he ought to have created a composite, fictitious, character. That would have both honored Dengler, without doing damage to DeBruin\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/p>\n
 <\/strong>Rescue Dawn <\/em>is a deeply engaging, though often deeply flawed, motion picture. It ought <\/em>to be seen, because it\u2019s clearly Werner Herzog\u2019s labor of love in doing homage to the indomitable spirit of his friend, Dieter Dengler. That <\/em>must be respected, and by no means do I want to suggest boycotting it.<\/p>\n
Dieter Dengler passed away in 2001 from Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease and was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. In Herzog\u2019s prelude to this film, the 1998 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, <\/em>Dengler confessed, \u201cI don\u2019t think of myself as a hero. No, only dead people are heroes.\u201d Here I must disagree with the otherwise self-assured Dengler\u2014humility aside, he was <\/em>truly heroic.<\/p>\n
But, here\u2019s something I do agree with Dengler on. In a videotaped interview, he quoted in awe his comrade Gene DeBruin, who made the painful decision to stay behind, rather than escape the hell of the POW camp, to take care of his friend Y.C. Tou, who was afflicted with malaria:<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care about that [staying behind], he\u2019s my buddy, he\u2019s my friend, and you guys go ahead, try to make it out.\u201d [\u2026] He was really hard-core about that, there was just no way that he would waver. He said, \u201cno, he\u2019s my friend, we\u2019ve been together in prison for two or three years, and if I have to die with him together, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlussel remarked about this poignant, pivotal, choice, \u201cI think Gene DeBruin\u2019s story is even more fantastic, not to detract from Dieter Dengler, who was genuinely heroic. But, to not<\/em> take a chance at freedom in order to take care of a fellow prisoner\u2014who was not even a American\u2014is even more heroic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herzog told me that he has just recently seen this testimony, and declared, \u201cI find this very noble,\u201d noting he now mentions it in all his recent public statements. \u201cMy hope is that Eugene DeBruin\u2019s family will eventually come across more detailed documents about his fate,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The last time Jerry DeBruin and his family got news about his brother\u2019s fate was in 1968, in which (in an unsubstantiated, though\u2014as he describes it\u2014from \u201cvery strong sources\u201d) Gene was reported to have been re-captured by Pathet Lao forces after an attempted escape, and relocated to North Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Jerry described his brother to me thusly,<\/p>\n
Gene sacrificed freedom to save his friend Tou, who although he has balls the size of oranges, could not walk. This is who my brother was. He was my mentor, and a very caring individual….We continue to search for this very day. The mission, is if he\u2019s alive, is to return. If he\u2019s dead, to be returned to us for proper burial of his remains. This September fifth will be the forty-fifth year of our mission. We won\u2019t give up searching for him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I cannot but respectfully disagree with Werner Herzog in how he chose to illuminate Dieter Dengler\u2019s heroism in making Rescue Dawn. <\/em>I do not believe Dengler\u2019s story can be told without telling Eugene DeBruin\u2019s full story. Not just the warts, but also in rightly paying tribute to DeBruin\u2019s own acts of gallantry.<\/p>\n
Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in <\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/em>RCA Victor <\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>, <\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span> (Canada), <\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton <\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of <\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
 \u00b7<\/strong> To get a fuller picture of Eugene DeBruin\u2019s character and legacy, visit his brother Jerry\u2019s website at www.rescuedawnthetruth.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Tale of Two Heroes [xrr rating=4\/5] Rescue Dawn. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Marshall Bell, Zach Grenier, Fran\u00e7ois Chau, Pat Healy, Teerawat Mulvilai, Yuttana Muenwaja, Chorn Solyda, Kriangsak Ming-olo, Abhijati \u2018Meuk\u2019 Jusakul, Lek Chaiyan Chunsuttiwat, and Andy Loftus. Music by Klaus Badelt. Art direction by Arin \u2018Aoi\u2019 Pinijvararak. Costume design by Annie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,50,67,35,37,3,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","category-biopics","category-docudramas","category-dramas","category-independent-films","category-mreview","category-war-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}